Have you ever felt that it’s all getting to you, the walls are closing in and you can’t breathe? That’s how I felt last Wednesday afternoon. Nothing was going right. I wanted to escape, just briefly, from it all and recharge the batteries. So I did.
I’m lucky at the moment that my work pattern and my partner’s too allows us to do this. I don’t advertise on this blog – yet! – and no one pays for a mention. But sometimes, I think a place or product deserves a free plug. And that place is Portmeirion. (I love Portmeirion Pottery too but that’s a whole other thing).
Feeding the soul
This is a diet blog but sometimes it’s necessary to feed the mind and the soul as well as the body. Portmeirion is our perfect blot hole for when it all gets a bit too much. It wasn’t the diet that was driving me crazy. The diet in the midst of what’s so far been a pretty crap year for me is the only light in my dark tunnel right now. I went on the diet to heal my physical health but what do you know? It’s healing me mentally too. I feel a lot better for being on the diet. It’s getting better and better.
Woodland walking
I am enjoying my diet and if it seems odd to enjoy a diet, it really shouldn’t. How can you possibly expect to stick to a diet if you don’t enjoy it? Apart from the weight loss, which is obviously great and why I’m doing it, I feel healthier and more energetic too. Double plus good!
My love for Portmeirion is not just the gorgeously daft pastel-painted buildings designed by one of the world’s greatest eccentrics, Clough Williams-Ellis. It’s the woodland walks – known as the Gwyllt – that I go for as much as the amusing architecture. Feeling fitter than I’ve felt in a long time meant I could really enjoy the Gwyllt. It fed my soul. I didn’t need much food!
A proper little Paleo
In just under two weeks I’m going for another weigh-in. That’ll be the 13-week/three month mark since I began the diet. I’m hoping for a loss of a stone in that time, so a further three pounds from my last weigh-in which was three weeks ago.
I’m telling you this to force me to stick to the diet this week and next. I’m going to be a proper little Paleo dieter, black coffee and all. No milk, sugar, bread, beans, potatoes or even sweetcorn or peas. Nothing that isn’t proper Paleo will pass my lips. I want to get this first stone gone and onto the next. I want to run up those woodland walks in the Gwyllt next time we go to Portmeirion. In the meantime though, I live in The Peak District and there are hills here to climb.
Climbing the glass mountain
My working life is much like climbing a glass mountain. In the pouring rain. With a grease slick on my path. That’s why sometimes I have to get away from it all. A silent phone and an email box that doesn’t ping is as stressful – perhaps more? – than one that pings and rings all day long. But I remain an optimist. It’ll get better. It always does. And in the meantime, when you feel a little out of control in your life, grabbing some control back feels great. That’s why diets, when they work and when you enjoy them, are more than food for the body. They’re food for the soul.
Eat on and enjoy! Have a good week.
