Artslim, weight, life, health management.

 
Water Workout. 11/26/2009
 
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I was all dressed up to head out too gym to do my weight work when the rain came with a roar, in sheets, of water.  The gutters could not cope and it was towels to mop up as water ran down one internal wall. No damage done; I heard that all my neighbours had similar internal leaks, as the gutters could not handle the volume of water. Once again, the tropics have come to Victoria.

Outside the gutters were swirling in water, which as the gutters filled with leaf, and branch litter washed along the open drain, it blocked them and a flood was rising up over the road in front of us.  I put the computer on and they were predicting flash flooding in our area, it was happening in front of me. Storm damage, in the suburbs too, my former gym, in Narre Warren had an internal wall cave in and it was flooded.

 
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The rain settled but the flood kept rising as water flowed down the drain and banked up where it was blocked.  Then I saw Annie, a lovely senior woman from a few doors down from me.  Annie is more senior than I am, I would guess and not a well woman and there she was with a leaf rake, pulling at the branches and leaves trying to clear the gutters in the rain.  I went and started clearing with her for a while, we had a great chat, J then I convinced her to stop and go home, promising I would finish the job tomorrow when it was not raining.
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I stopped and had dinner; this is when I am glad I have healthy pre cooked dinners in the freezer ready to thaw and heat. Four-minute noodles, chicken, and vegetable stew, lovely.
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The rain stopped, I considered going to gym to do my weights, it seemed more sensible to return to the ditch clearing work, so I did. After I had piled all the leaf litter and branches on the bank, I carried it over to my beautifully soaked garden and piled leaf litter mulch 200cm deep over my entire front gardenJ. This leaf mulch was great payment for my work, that quantity of mulch would have cost me $100. easily and what better quality is there than aged leaf litter. J. A gardener’s dream and an extremely good work out.  

 The gutters are cleared and the water is draining away into Lake Victoria.

I was so hungry, I tucked into a big feed of prawns and cheese on dry biscuits far a second dinner, when I finished.
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Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles...

It empties today of its strength.

-Aunt Linda.    A quote from ‘Spark people.

Today started out tough, but turned out to be a beautiful day, here at our ‘summer retreat’, in Northern Victoria.

I have been using my observation and corrections technique on myself as I observe I am beginning to overeat again and observe this is probably in response to my concern over Reg’s health.  My husband Reg, having whooping cough at the moment and becoming very frail, having a lot of pain and difficulty walking.

I arranged for Reg and me to spend part of today in the garden, a lovely mood elevating place for a recovering man to relax for a while.  I also got some enjoyable exercise doing some gardening, and I’ve also put into practice eating regularly, more often, but small servings, today to counter my desire to eat often.

I do my weight bearing exercises, strength and balance training at gym tomorrow. I am doing this one day on and then two days off to allow myself to fully recover and it is being well supervised by my gym instructors.

I hope that soon this feeling of wanting to eat frequently, (emotional eating desire), will leave me as I put positive thoughts into place and accept that my overeating, - self abusing I will call it, in ‘straight talk’, will not cure Reg of the whooping cough. 
Why we want to walk to a fridge, open it, look for something to eat as instant gratification rather than seek the long term gratification of being slim and healthy, is obviously deeply entrenched in our nature, preconditioning no doubt from infancy, maybe someone gave us a sweet when we grazed our knee, the Doctor always had a jelly bean to give us after a needle.  It might have served us well then, but we are not children now and we don’t need to carry on behaviours that harm us. (LOL, self lecturing here  J )

I CAN DO IT.  I do not over eat.

It is OK to eat often if you crave to do so. Just eat healthy and less food, if your eating more often and you end up feeling satisfied, but not having appreciably overeaten.
As a physician once told me when I argued with him that 'I did eat healthy that i simple could not lose weight', (back then when I was obese), he said, ‘Take what you eat now and halve it’, that was good advice.

I’ve not done a lot of damage, I actually have gained one kilo of lean body mass, all muscle, according to my gym assessment and 1 kilo of fat.  They said, ‘not to stress the fat gain’, and I won’t but I do intend to release another 7 kilo of excess fat , not gain any, and so I am giving myself a little, ‘pep talk’, right here in my blog and reviewing my action plans and to do list, so I stay, right on track to my goal.

I’ll share my beautiful relaxing garden pictures with you. It was a lovely day today, and I know I’m not helping Reg by neglecting my own health and well being overeating or feeling like cutting gym and not going out when he isn’t well.  I WILL stay on track to goal, but eating portion controlled healthy foods I LOVE and exercising in a positive (my gym) environment, with people who will encourage and support me. The more I attend gym, the more they will know me there and give me the reinforcement of emotional support I need.

Surround yourself with positive people who reinforce your goals and personal belief.

 
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It was the first beautiful sunny day I’ve had to spend time in my garden since I returned to my country home in northern Victoria a week ago.  

I had a lovely day, I began by blogging about Tesselaar in the Dandenong Ranges in my Gray-Nomad  blog, then I began weeding between the clumps of pansies and spring flowering bulbs that have emerged and digging last summer’s mulch into he top soil to add organic matter and lighten the fairly heavy mostly clay content soil I started out with. 

I moved a Margarite that had grown rather large through winter, out into my back courtyard garden, planted tomatoes in the courtyard and then set about planting my summer flowering liliums. 

I planted 25 Lilium Triumphator which is described by Tesselaar as haing ‘voluptuous white flowers with a beetroot red throat.  An O.T. Lily hybrid with glamour and fragrance.  Hardy and wonderful.

OT Hybrids are the latest in Lilium breeding from Europe. A cross between an oriental and a longiflorum, OT's have been bred for a long vase life and floral arranging. Ideal for cut flowers and gardens, tall strong stems topped with multiple flowers and a soft scent. Grows 110cm tall. Flower during the summer months.

In front of these, still well to the back of the garden i planted clumps of three to five White Christmas Lilies then in small groups wherever I could find room, just back from the front border, and between my roses, I planted the bright colourful, oriental liliums.

A general tidy up, and the garden early spring clean up was complete.  Tomorrow I am planting herbs, and vegetables down the side of the house and in the courtyard, between the roses and perennials and I plan to plant mushrooms to grow on my outside deck.

Because I bought these liliums direct at the plant farm the Lilium Triumphor was marked down to ¼ price and all the other lilliums were all well below the cost of mail order or nursery purchased plants and much healthier, straight from the grower to the gardener and back into the ground without any set back.  Liliums do not have a dormant period, it’s important to plant them quickly.

My other concession to economy was to not buy any of the gorgeous, fragrant but more expensive Asiatic liliums.

I will be paying a visit to the zucchini growers in the Goulburn valley soon, they grow the plants in coconut core and once they harvest, they put the coconut core aside for people like myself to collect for free to use as garden mulch.

I'll need to clean out a few unwanted items from the garden shed to sell on EBay, my house keeping allowance doesn't stretch to lilium buys but lilium buys do so much for the inner me, not to mention the joy I experience when gazing at flowers in my garden, there needs to be a balance between budgeting and being too frugal, life needs to be lived and enjoyed and I thing a few hours next week selling some over stock will be rewarded for weeks of beauty during summer for many years and the anticipation of watching the liliums grow.   

This is the smallest garden I've ever had, in some ways I'm grateful for that, it's my retirement garden, great exercise when i want it, but I'll never need to be a slave to it.

It was a very satisfying day. J 
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Lilium delphinium and paeony. art fridge magnet by Kathy Shell.
The flowers in my cottage garden supply subjects for me to paint and enjoy.