Brighton 🇬🇧 ➡️ Portland, OR 🇺🇸 // 👨👩👧👦 // 👷🏻 & 👨💻 // 🌿 💪🏼 🚶🏻♂️ // ❤️
I’m on a lifelong mission of trying to improve my health by eating better and being more active
Last year, a trusted friend put a word in my ear that I have really taken to heart. That word is determination.
I’ve always been quite placid, so being determined to do anything isn’t something that comes naturally to me. With my wife wanting me to take a leadership role in our marriage, this has definitely caused some friction.
It’s inherently hard to trust doctors in America. In the land of the free, healthcare is privatised and opened up to the free market, which brings with it the ugliness of capitalism. I’m by no means anti-capitalist: it does a lot of good and has even enabled me to start and run my own business. However, my health is one of the few things that I do not want subject to the many faces of capitalism.
In case you weren’t aware, I hail from the wonderful rolling hills of England. I am proud to be British, but don’t shove it in other people’s faces (a la “America is the best country in the world”). The British way is still very ingrained in British culture and the way we do things, regardless of the influence that America has had on our society.
One of the vastly different ways that things are done in the UK is healthcare. Established in 1948, The National Health Service (NHS) brought freely accessible healthcare to all, regardless of one’s ability to pay. Funded by taxes, the NHS is still almost universally where all Britons’ healthcare is conducted, unless you happen to be quite rich and decide to opt for private healthcare.
This is one of the many beautiful views of Clam Bayou from the Skyway Trail: a newly opened trail in St. Petersburg, Florida.
I’ve been meaning to get out here for a while, but the heat of summer made that unreasonable. So with the weather starting to get a little milder, Ellie and I went out for a stroll along the trail today and it’s full of views like this.
If you live in the area, or are visiting, and like the outdoors, it’s well worth the trip.
Sometimes, I surprise even myself with how hippyish I’m becoming.
This is Earthpaste: toothpaste made from little more than clay. Toothpaste is one of my last strongholds that isn’t a natural product in my house: I take dental care seriously since teeth are the only part of the body that can’t repair themselves, so it took a lot of research to find something that I feel comfortable with.
It’s going to take some getting used to, especially the fact that it doesn’t foam. It might be even harder to get used to a non-minty toothpaste. I’m currently trialling the spearmint version, but the lemon twist flavour is arriving soon…
Martina and I have decided not to vaccinate Ellie after considerable research into the matter, and I was glad to see someone standing up in support of those who choose not to (or to selectively) vaccinate their children. Jessica Gianelloni discusses the fallacies in the arguments meant to intimidate or scare those who have made this decision. My favourite part is when she questions why parents of vaccinated children are so scared of non-vaccinated children being around them (since presumably they are immune to any disease that my child might be harbouring…).
I’m not one to push my decisions or theories on others, but I felt compelled to share this article, in light of some of the responses that we’ve seen to the mention of not vaccinating Ellie, including from our closest friends (who assume that we’ve taken this choice lightly [we spent hours researching and read unbiased books on the subject], are “miss-educated” [or miseducated – oh, the irony] and are doing it because we’re part of a hippy movement [not because we’re concerned for the welfare and health of our children]).
If you want to vaccinate your children, that’s fine – go nuts: you won’t hear me complaining. But don’t get on your soapbox and start bullying me into making the same decisions that you make.
I’ve been using big standard deodorants since I was old enough to need them. Since moving to hot and humid Florida, I’ve even upgraded to the more “clinical strength” versions to help out in the height of summer.
However, since reviewing our lifestyle lately and moving to more organic and chemical-free options, a new deodorant was next on my list.
For Christmas, I bought Martina a three-month to the Vegan Cuts beauty box, and just this past month, she got a sample of Primal Pit Paste deodorant. She tried it herself and enjoyed it, but knowing I myself was in search of a new deodorant, she offered it up to me to try out.
In order to keep sugar-free gummy bears sweet, Haribo needed to add an artificial sweetener, Lycasin. Just be warned that unnatural things can happen when you eat unnatural things.
Martina has been vegan for about 3 and a half years now, and while I was initially reluctant, within a couple of months, we had gone completely vegan at home. While Martina is more of an ethical vegan (that is, one who chooses not to consume animal products because of how animals are treated, and thus, doesn’t use leather or any other animal-derived material, whether food or not), after doing more research into the matter, I started to become more convinced of the health benefits of a “plant-strong” diet (dietary vegan) and tried to limit my intake of meat as much as possible.
As an engineer, who is sometimes working in fairly remote places, it can be hard to even find vegan food options, so I stopped short of becoming fully vegan for that reason. However, I became lax and would often “splurge” at lunch by eating meat, even though vegetarian and vegan options might be available to me.
I have long been a supporter of Movember, the month dedicated to growing moustaches to highlight men’s health issues.
For those who don’t know, men can be quite stubborn, especially when it comes to their own health. This clandestine topic needs to come out into the open more, and great strides have been made in recent years by campaigns such as Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong campaign, and Movember.
In Movember, men are encouraged to grow a moustache to promote a conversation about men’s health with your friends. For example, a few facts about men’s health that could be helped by opening up a discussion:
While trying to put a meal together recently, I was looking for some inspiration, and I came up with the idea of putting together a list of staple ingredients that we try to maintain in our house and I was surprised at just how much variety there really was.
Seeing it in this form makes it easy to scan the list and come up with some ideas for meals, so I thought it would be useful to share.
What would you add to the list? What ingredients can’t you live without?
