Reading the Man Booker list

I read a lot, but always found walking into a bookshop a bewildering experience because there were just too many choices to make.

This situation changed while on a holiday in Italy. I had a few days to fill and with high heats outside, I needed a book to fill in the long afternoon siesta in the refuge of my air-conditioned room. Being Italy, there was only a limited choice of books in English. I found a selection of three interesting books, took them back to my room, and couldn't put them down.

I don't know whether it was happenstance that all three books were either winners of or shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but my curiousity was aroused. Given that all three books I had just read were excellent, I had to be on to something.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction started as the Booker McConnell Prize in 1968, set up by the company of the same name. It is a literary prize that is awarded once a year to the best original full-length novel, written in English by a citizen of the Commonwealth, Ireland or Zimbabwe. In 2002 the Booker Prize Foundation took over, sponsored by the Man Group. Each year they select a longlist, which is then narrowed down to a shortlist of between four and seven novels, from which they select a winner.

I have now read thirteen winning or shortlisted novels of the Man Booker Prize, with the oldest so far being from the 2001 list. I have yet to strike a novel that hasn't been a good read, with some of them so gripping that all else in my life has been sidelined until the novel was finished. One or two left me a little undecided, and as I intend to review them as I finish them, you'll soon find out why.

Never again will I have to suffer indecision as I enter a bookshop (or shop for a book online). I have my list of Man Booker prizewinners handy, and my decision is made. With nearly 300 books in the list so far, it should keep me busy for a while.

Kayaking



IN the Nepean River learning to swim after failing to paddle!

My inauspicious introduction to kayaking was at a SPAN Outdoors Club training weekend in October 2011. I didn't stay in the kayak for long, tipping out within two minutes (see picture). As it turned out I was an unstable paddler in an unstable kayak.

I ventured into the same kayak at the beginning of January 2012, with 10kg inside the rear hull. I have since bought the same kayak second-hand, a Marauder by Elliott Kayaks, a medium recreational sea kayak.

I didn't waste any time and joined the Lane Cove River Kayakers, who do a 6 or 12 km time trial every Wednesday night and participate heavily in marathon events. It only took a few goes in the kayak to become more stable, allowing me to enter my first 6 km time trial in February. I quickly knocked 10 minutes off my time, became stable enough to reduce the weight in my boat, then sat on the same time for a few months.

In May I ventured out on the Parramatta River to paddle from Concord to Cockatoo Island. I'd only just taken the ballast out of my boat, so was not feeling particularly safe when a boat went past and created waves. I felt really unsafe when a RiverCat was heading straight for me and I wasn't convinced I could get out of its way in time. There may have been a few tears and a small amount of panic, and I didn't go near waves again for another month. I've been back out there since, and actually enjoyed the waves created by passing boats.

I love kayaking. There is something about being out on the water in a craft that has no motor, allowing you to enjoy the peace and quiet of a river that is usually surrounded by bushland. I very rarely get wet, apart from the occasional incident of mud sucking my feet down, causing me to fall over in the water when trying to get back in my boat. I occasionally get startled when a fish leaps out of the water right next to my boat, and ducks can be a hazard when they refuse to get out of the way. It's relaxing and good exercise and is something that can be done with others, especially if you've got access to a double kayak. Pick someone athletic so you can enjoy the ride!

Wear a Personal Flotation Device (PFD, or better known as a flotation vest) and go with someone that knows what they're doing. Put lights on your kayak at dawn, dusk and at night.



Bobbin Head at dawn

 

Cockatoo Island in the morning

Lane Cove River at dawn

 

Hawkesbury River near Bar Point late morning



Training Bailey

Back in May I became the proud new owner of a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Skyesong Kiss the Blarney, born on St Patricks Day and better known as Bailey. 

I spent a lot of time deciding what breed of dog I wanted to get, and settled on the Toller because of their aptitude for agility trials and obedience. I considered a Border Collie, but they tend to get destructive when alone in a yard all day, whereas a Toller is happy entertaining himself. So far Bailey hasn't destroyed anything (fingers crossed).

I've been working on various tricks since I got him. We started with sit, which was quite funny, because Bailey started shuffling around on his bum everywhere in the hope of scoring a treat.

He's also learnt to pay attention, which means that when I call his name he (mostly) looks at me straight away - also in the hope of scoring a treat.

We moved on to lying down, getting up again, stay, fetch and stand. To pass his first grade at training school he had to learn a new trick, so I taught him to shake my hand. After he stopped trying to eat my hand, he willingly started offering his paw up for a shake - once again in the hope of scoring a treat.

Fortunately for Bailey, he usually gets a treat when he does the right thing. He works for frankfurts (hot dogs, cheerios). He treats plain biscuits with disdain, unless they're provided in a large pile in his food bowl.

His latest trick is the first step towards something bigger. I've trained him to fetch and return his ball, which he then drops in a bucket. It was much easier when the bucket was at my feet because I could point in there. It became a bit more challenging when I moved the bucket away from me and asked him to deposit the ball there before coming to me for his treat. In the video Bailey returns the ball to the bucket at my feet, and then after a few false starts, successfully drops his ball in the bucket when it is away from me. 

I'm a little bit proud of him :)

Unbelievable diets

There are some absolute crackers of ways to lose weight out there that people have tried and in some cases still try in an effort to lose weight.

http://bit.ly/H56G5I

I found a highly absorbing website called www.everydiet.org that reviews hundreds of different diets, some of them credible and some of them a bit scary.

One of the scariest was the 'Tapeworm diet', only available in Mexico and for a cost of $1500 (on top of possible health costs for the side effects). If you're unlucky, this diet can be lethal.

There's the 'Wrong Hand Diet' where you eat with your non-favoured hand. Or the one where you make sure at parties that you are holding something in one hand (like a handbag) so that it is more difficult to hold multiple items of food. This could also result in you simply spilling everything down the front of your favourite outfit, or worse down the front of someone else's favourite outfit.

Perhaps you could try the diet where you chew your food 32 times and spit it out, because you're not allowed to swallow it. The brilliant mind behind this one was art dealer Horace Fletcher (in the early 1900s).

A few people have invented diet aids, like the red/green light fork, patented in 1995.

http://www.faddiet.com/redligfor.html

The fork senses when you eat something and the light changes from green to red. You can't eat again until it turns back to green. Bit frustrating really.

Some of us might like the sound of the sleeping diet, sleeping 24/7 so there's no need to eat, and you'll be tired enough to sleep because you'll be exhausted from lack of the energy normally provided by food. Not how I want to spend my days...

Establishing good habits

I'm really pleased to be able to say I lost weight this week. The meal plan I created last week was great. Because it was full of my favourite meals, I looked forward to every meal and really enjoyed eating them. My favourite was probably the filo fish pie which was a Taste.com.au recipe. It was surprisingly creamy for something low-fat, so it felt like I was having something naughty. I also looked forward to my sweet treats enough that I didn't indulge before I was supposed to.

The top moment of the week was when I discovered that I needed to wear a belt with my favourite jeans. It'd been so long since I'd worn a belt I couldn't remember where I'd put them :)

A few people commented this week that they didn't know how I kept on doing all the exercise. I'm doing about 5-7 hours a week, and I have to say that even though I sometimes think, Oh I'll just miss it this time, I usually don't. I think it's become a habit to ride to work on Monday and Friday, and to go paddling on Tuesday morning and Wednesday night, and climb on Thursday night. Then if I feel like it, I do something on Sunday as well. I didn't really like my yoga class and it was expensive, so yoga is on hold until I find a better class.

There's a lot to be said for creating good habits. Exercising can become a habit, and so can the foods you eat. You start eating a healthy breakfast, and soon you don't think about how you used to just have a coffee, because you enjoy the breakfast and it gives you a good start to the day. 

The thing about habits is that the bad ones keep sneaking back in, so you have to keep up your guard. Telling yourself that one piece of cake won't matter is fine, if that's the only piece of cake you're having over a few days. If you start telling yourself that everyday, those pieces of cake are going to start adding up before you know it!

Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits. (Robert Puller)

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. (Jim Rohn)

Weekly plan of fave low-fat meals

I needed a jump start this week, so I spent some time on the weekend preparing a meal plan I was sure to stick to. I've taken some of my favourite meals and recipes from a huge assortment of Weight Watchers meals plans and cookbooks I own, my Contours cookbook, and some recipes from Taste. Contours women's gym runs a six-week challenge every few months that is really worth doing. You get a cookbook, personal training on a 30 minute circuit and a bio-age assessment. I like the Taste website, because the recipes usually work, they're reviewed and rated, so you can be sure of the recipe you're choosing, and they give you nutritional data that allows you to make healthy choices.

My meal plan goes for six days, because I always eat out at least one lunch or dinner each week. If I don't, I can always just repeat one of the other days. I aim to eat 7000 kj a day, which is close to the recommended kilojoules for someone of my age, height and weight. I also try to keep the fat to under 50g a day - remembering that your saturated fat should be under 20g a day. I might update my table to show saturated fat soon, except not all recipes show this figure. Eating a bit under this each day allows for the extra kilojoules I'm bound to eat when I eat out, or gives me the flexibility to add another cup of soup or can of baked beans if I'm hungry.

I try to keep it balanced with a few sweet treats because if I don't allow myself to have them I end up eating a whole lot of them at once, which does a lot more damage. As long as you don't have more than about half a day's worth of your weekly kilojoules made up from sugar, you'll be fine. The main problem with sugar is it doesn't fill you up and often leaves you wanting more. You'll notice I also include a balance of fruit (at least two pieces a day), vegetables, proteins and carbohydrates. I've also put thought into how satisfying a meal is and what types of snacks I'm likely to want before the next meal.

I'm planning to make four of these plans in total. That way I've got lots of variety and won't get bored with the food. We tend to eat the same meals over and over normally, cooking our favourites each week, so hopefully I'll develop some real favourites that will help me be healthy for life.

I didn't lose any weight again, so I've only attached my exercise record for the week. I really worked hard at kayaking this week and was so sore and tired after my time trial on Wednesday night, I couldn't bring myself to fight the road traffic to get to climbing on Thursday night! 

Emotional eating

It feels like my weight loss goal has been dragging on forever. I feel for my readers because there hasn't really been any progress over the last few weeks and I'm now a kilo behind where I wanted to be now. BUT, I think there's been a little progress, because I've managed to keep up my exercise and I haven't put on weight. That's been half my battle in the past.

I've talked before about some of the barriers to weight loss, including not having a good choice of foods while travelling, and eating when you're tired. A big one for a lot of people is emotional eating. I had a hard week, and found myself looking through the cupboard or fridge when I wasn't hungry, just to take my mind of things. I resisted the temptation to have a big serve of hot chips, and even when a guy in my office offered them around, I only had one. It was harder to resist having another piece of bread, or a hot chocolate, or a few lollies.

There's a lot of theories about why we eat when we're emotional. I think I do it for several reasons. As I said above, it's a distraction, eating is calming and satisfying (especially hot food), and I'm less likely to stick to plans when I'm upset, as I just grab whatever is handy. I don't know how important this is, but when I was little my mum gave me treats when I was sick and food to calm me down. Many people have written about the connection between this and adult reliance on food, but I can understand why parents do it - the affect is magical. When you've got a distressed child you want to make them happy again and food often does it.

While it's handy to know all the reasons we eat when we're emotional, the most important thing is to recognise it when it's happening. If you're upset and you find yourself staring at the food cupboard, think about talking to a friend, or writing in a journal, or exercising (the endorphins willl make you feel good and it's good for you as well). So while I didn't lose weight this week, I feel good that I didn't let my emotions take control of my diet :)