Life is Healthy

I think I figured out my dream with RED FLAGS. I was throwing up RED FLAGS for myself. And, yes, I get it. Sorry, I can't go into detail here because the explanation has to do with work, and you know how it goes if you talk about your job on your blog. It can get ugly, and I need my job.

Allison has lost 50 pounds since January. She took the extreme measure of participating in a 130 mile walk (15 miles a day along a noisy highway) back in March to get her motivated.

These days she does a file mile walk each morning and belongs to Weight Watchers. See her walking story here.

Carrie is planning to do the 3 peaks challenge, no mean feat! (not feet, they ARE mean!)
But if you feel like sponsoring her or simply checking out her progress simply follow this link http://3csconquer3peaks.blogspot.com/

Also I was asked whats happening with me (personally), well, I'm due to move into Sandra's soon then we will get a place of our own, but not in Madrid very expensive and when she has to quit work it will be too much for one wage! The cost of living is ridiculous nowadays - I remember when... ... (cue Hovis music).

To be honest I'm still working hard, and playing as hard, Sandra has had her first scan, and it would appear she is having a pitufo (smurf)!? Although she is getting a very cute pot belly.
The morning sickness appears to have stopped although the mere mention of Baked Beans (English Beans, to her) and shes off again.

Erm I also seem to have gained a few pounds :-S
Waiting VERY patiently for MGS4 (only 8 days left), not allot else to say, I guess!

A brain chemical strongly linked to mood and appetite may also directly affect fat gain, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
They said levels of serotonin, the nerve-signaling chemical targeted by many antidepressants, may also direct the body to put down fat regardless of how much food is eaten.


"It may be one reason diets fail," metabolism expert Kaveh Ashrafi of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, said in a telephone interview. The findings, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, could lead to better diet drugs and treatments for diseases like diabetes.

Serotonin may help the body decide whether to burn off excess calories, or store them as fat, Ashrafi said.

He worked with roundworms for his experiment but said the findings may relate to humans. "These worms, although they are microscopic, they have around 20,000 genes ... and if you compare them side by side they are about 50 percent similar to us," he said.

Genes controlling appetite, fat storage and metabolism are especially similar, he said. The tiny worms can be manipulated to see changes to their metabolism, appetite and weight gain.

"It has been known for a long time that increasing serotonin causes fat reduction," Ashrafi said.

"At the molecular level we are trying to understand what is the mechanism that allows that to happen. What we discovered in the worm is that those mechanisms can be separated from the mechanisms that mediate the effects of serotonin on appetite."

The research found serotonin levels affected the worms' appetite, but they also affected how much fat the worms accumulated, and this was via a separate process.

If the worms detect a food shortage, their metabolisms shift and they store more fat. This could explain why some people get fat more easily than others -- and why dieting can cause more weight gain later.

"Different people may have similar diets, may have similar rates of physical activity, but may have very different body weights," Ashrafi said. "Appetite is only part of it."

But for now the remedy for excess body fat remains obvious. "Nothing in our study says that good nutrition and physical activity are not good for you," Ashrafi said.

Simply raising serotonin levels can have serious side-effects. The diet drug fenfluramine, which has the effect of raising serotonin levels, was pulled off the market in 1997 after it caused sometimes deadly heart valve damage.

Source: Yahoo News

The NW2/NW10 turf war has obviously been going on for some time. Check out this "rebel song" from 1999 by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros in which the ex-punk rocker clearly wants change "from Willesden to Cricklewood". The lyrics also contain the phrase "Come with me and be no good, be a mad man on the street", which is obviously a reference to taking a black felt tip pen and altering postcodes on street signs. I can think of no badder or madder way to behave on the street.



When will the government ban this sick filth like they did with the Pogues's Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six? Or at least have the lyrics sung by an actor not quite in lip sync with the original.

I am going to release a triple album in response - Willesdenista!

Found this recipe, which became dinner (we had a 'cross rib roast' thawing. I had never heard of such a thing).

When I realized I didn't have rosemary, I asked the internet what to do and found out I could substitute savory.

It was delicious.

I am off to bed very soon (I am as tired as when my kids were babies) and will offer up a more coherent post tomorrow.

Good night.

Today, I have leg cramps. It was really hard getting through step class when my legs didn't want to move. I think I must make a lot of faces that reflect my agony. The instructor kept saying, "Just a little longer," while she was looking right at me.