From Couch to 5 Cakes
The Diary of a Midlife Bore
Just. Do. It
How do you feel about formal exercise? Or informal exercise for that matter?
I excel at anything informal.
Jeans & trainers are very much a staple part of my wardrobe.
I say please & thank you but don’t expect me to doff my cap or be impressed simply because you are older, cleverer or richer than me.
Expect swearing.
So is it any wonder that I put off ‘formal’ exercise for as long as I can?
Take last week for example.
Having finally decided I would like to (should) do something about the fact that most of my clothes are beyond snug, I headed back to Echelon to restart my membership. Echelon is the uncool version of Peloton, like the geeky little sister, aka me. It does the same as Peloton but it’s not as slick plus they don’t have the super cool celeb type trainers or the huge price tag (it’s still a bit spenny though).
Day 1, wheel of doom, I couldn’t sign up. Day 2, the same problem. By the time day 3’s wheel of doom hit I thought it best to contact customer service. Day 4, I’ve finally set myself up with an annual membership which by this point felt like an accomplishment in itself. So much so, that I gave myself the rest of the week off to recuperate.
Exercise 0; Hannah 7
The thing is failing to exercise does not feel like winning.
Informal exercise I can do. Take the dog out, check. Run around the garden playing with the dog, check. Stretch, climb and balance to reach things around the garden, check. Drag garden waste and bags of compost around, check. Rotovate and dig, check. Hoover, oh wait, don’t check because household chores are not my friend.
All of the, what I call fun stuff, I can do, but ask me to go on a run or for a bike ride and it’s really tedious. More than 30 minutes and I’m asking, where’s the pub? Or, shall I just walk back and enjoy the view ? Which is why I only train when I have a challenge or event coming up and I have none booked for the foreseeable.
If you are one of those people who exercises because you like it, tell me your secret.
Now, I understand that it helps if you find the thing you love, but I’m not sure there is a sport for me. I’m not a fan of…running, cycling, the gym, yoga, football, netball, tennis, hockey…I could probably go on. You may have guessed it, I am inherently lazy and would much rather sit down with a book and a cup of tea than actually do something.
Still I have high hopes for this week.
Let them eat cake, as long as it’s not chocolate.
Given that exercising wasn’t going my way, I thought it best to make cake. Courgette cake mind you, you know the healthy kind!
As I debated between a lemon courgette and a chocolate courgette cake, I wondered why chocolate cake felt 'naughtier' than non-chocolate cake.
What is is about the 4 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder that was going to make it so much worse given it already had 125g butter, 175g sugar, 225g flour and 3 eggs?
Absolutely nothing.
It’s the story we tell ourselves. In actual fact it’s the story the diet industry has told us. That’s instilled a preconceived notion that chocolate is bad.
Chocolate is naughty, chocolate is a treat, chocolate is calorie dense, it has syns and points, it’s ultra processed. Or is it?
It depends. Cocoa powder is refined, of course it is, but so is the flour in our bread and pasta and the sugar in our granola.
Adding a few tablespoons of cocoa powder to a cake is not equivalent to eating five creme eggs, and yes, I’ve done both of these things.
What do you think when you look at cake options, do you automatically think the carrot cake is healthier than the chocolate brownie?
For the love of books
In other news my book club is nearly up and running. We have a wonderful island Facebook group and I truly mean that. Yes there might be the odd whinge, but all in all it’s a delightfully helpful group.
The boat updates you get from the skippers are much better than anything you’d get off the website, all the community groups share whats going on and my favourite part, put a call out for something & someone can help. Whether that’s picking something up from Mainland or getting a local farmer to drop off a load of lick tubs so you can start container gardening (me last year).
When I asked if there was a book group on the island I fully expected a resounding yes, but no, instead there was a resounding cry to set one up! So that’s what I’ve done, we have 14 members, a venue and a day, so now I just need to nail down the time and we are good to go.
The response has totally blown me away, especially since some of these people have actually met me and they still want to be part of something I’m setting up. I walk away from every conversation cringing about how annoying I am and thinking, “sigh, they must hate me”. So the fact people are coming to my thing, hosted by me, is very good news indeed!
These past few weeks I’ve found myself seeing more people and getting more involved and I think, with time, I may be able to call myself part of this community.
Han 💚
The week in numbers:
Cakes: 1 (not 5 as insinuated by the title)
Creme eggs: 1
Exercise sessions: 0
Potatos planted: 13
Aubergine seeds germinated: 6
Cold dips: 3
Longest dip: 5.5 minutes 🥶
Week high: 11℃
Week low: 3℃
Windiest wind: 47mph (I think more)
Latest sunset: 8:42pm
Increase in day length: 35 minutes
Trips added to the diary: 2 - Tunbridge Wells & Skye
Oh I want to come to your book club!!!