Sugar Tax
Posted: Mon 9 April, 2018 Filed under: Advertising, Change, Cynicism, Diet Coke, Domestic, Food, Health, Marketing, Politics, Thoughts 2 Comments »On Friday, the UK introduced a “Sugar Tax” on sweet drinks, purportedly to help reduce childhood obesity. Will it work? Personally, I doubt it.
There’s a few reasons – first and foremost, that a lot of manufacturers have already chosen to reduce the sugar levels in their drinks to put them into lower rates for the sugar tax.
Connected to that, diet and zero-calorie versions of most of those drinks have been available for years. If people haven’t chosen to swap by now, will paying 10p extra make them change? Probably not. There’s not even a really visible price difference – at least two of the shop chains I use regularly have upped the price on all the drinks, not just the sugary ones, which also defeats the object. If there were a visible difference ( “I can buy 500ml of the sugary one for £1.50, or the diet one for £1.35, so I’ll save money”) then it might work, but without that, I don’t see that there’s a real driver to force the change.
Alongside that, I *personally* have a problem with government telling me how to be healthy, and attempting to enforce that. I have the same issue when it comes to smoking, the way government encourages people to stop smoking, while also getting massive amounts of income from the tax and duty on cigarettes. (This also applies for alcohol, telling people to drink less while getting the income from the tax and duty, and so on and so on)
I also suspect that there’s a lot more damage done by the ‘invisibly’ sweet drinks – the bizarre creamy milky super-sweet concoctions from Starbucks, Caffe Nero, Costa et al – which now seem to be far more prevalent than sweet fizzy drinks. I suspect there’s a lot more of the obesity blame that can be laid on the coffee culture now than can be laid at the soft-drinks industry. I’m not even sure that the coffee chains are being hit by the sugar tax – I haven’t seen any mention of it being on anything except the soft-drinks industry.
It’ll be interesting to see the results – although of course the government will always claim it to have been a massive success, even when it’s a clusterfuck of monumental proportions – but I really don’t expect to see it have any positive effects on reducing obesity, whether in children or adults.
Low on Steps – Followup
Posted: Wed 7 March, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Out More, Health, Thoughts 1 Comment »Following on from my “back to normal” post on Monday, things have worked out somewhat differently.
I somehow managed to twist my back and put it out – something to do with slipping a step while avoiding treading on a cat on a staircase, I’m pretty sure – which means that things are a bit more painful than I’d been expecting.
I still managed to get in the walking target on Monday, and utterly failed yesterday. Today’s looking like it’ll be OK, and I’m sure I’ll manage for the rest of the week.
Thankfully, it’s not (so far as I can tell) a major issue, more that a couple of muscles are properly clenched and not doing me any favours. Initially it hurts like a bastard as I walk, and then eases off. That first phase lasts about five minutes, and hurts enough that it’s making my hips and pelvis hurt because I’m obviously walking differently and clenching different muscles.
Then it eases off. I’m aware of it still, and not walking at my usual speed, but it’s all tolerable and so on.
Even so, though, fucking OW.
Low on Steps
Posted: Mon 5 March, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Out More, Health Leave a comment »Last week was a very quiet one, mainly because of the weather. While I aim for breaking 10,000 steps a day, I wasn’t going to do that while it was ridiculously snowy, icy, and slippery (well, ridiculously for the UK, anyway) Instead, I ended up averaging about 7,000 a day.
Thankfully, we’ve now thawed out for the most part – it’s been surprising to see just how much the temperature has flipped over the weekend, from -5ºC on Friday through to 5°C on Saturday and 8/9°C on Sunday, which has meant that just about all the snow disappeared at quite a speed!
That should mean I’ll be able to get back to normal levels of walking this week, and then a London visit will boost things even further. (That one’s going to be interesting, and something I’ll almost certainly write more about next week)
March is a ridiculously busy month for me, what with one thing and another. That should also help with getting me back to “normal”…
Slightly Explodo
Posted: Fri 9 February, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Single Life Leave a comment »This week has been an oddly distrubed one in some ways, which has ended up meaning it’s all felt a bit disconnected and weird.
Back on Monday, I drove home from the on-site office feeling rough, heartburn-y and so on, which wasn’t overly pleasant. I assumed I’d had too much caffeine or something.
But no. As it turned out, it was the start of a fairly unpleasant dose of food poisoning (so far as I can tell) By seven I was sweating and knew I was unwell, and by half seven I’d barfed my stomach out. Still rough, I went back downstairs, and basically passed out – which has happened before when I’m seriously unwell, so that in itself isn’t a massive concern. (It’s still not great, don’t get me wrong – but it’s not a “fuck, I need to get to the hospital” type of event like it might be elsewhere) I didn’t come round in a good state at all (and I’m not giving the details on that one, don’t worry) and still shivering and feeling rotten. By half nine I was in bed, and didn’t get up ’til eight the next day. To be honest, that’s always the biggest sign for me that I’ve been really bad, when I ended up sleeping like that.
Since then, I’ve been on the mend. Tuesday was pretty much a write-off, although I did get some stuff done, appointments fulfilled and so on, but didn’t go to the cinema screening I had booked for the evening. The rest of the week has been a bit calmer as a result, and I still don’t feel 100%, but I’m a lot closer to it than I was at the start of the week…
Health Check
Posted: Mon 22 January, 2018 Filed under: Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »It’s been about two years since I last darkened the door of my GP for a health check, so a couple of weeks ago, I made the appointment. That day was today.
I’ve done about half the stuff for now – I apparently now need to go to the local hospital in order to get blood tests done, among other things – but everything so far is apparently ‘very good’, and even ‘puts a lot of our patients to shame’. I’ll take that, to be honest.
- Blood pressure hasn’t changed, and is 130/80. Slightly high (according to charts I’ve then looked at since) but well within acceptable limits
- Blood sugar was perfectly fine – on a “random” check (I had eaten within the time-span, so couldn’t do a fasting blood-sugar etc.) it came back as 7, so the proper fasting one should be lower, and well within limits
- No idea on pulse-rate, but the nurse said it was absolutely fine, so again, I’m happy enough with that.
- Weight, as always, is too high. I’m still working on it, and getting a couple of referrals to other departments to see what they say, or can help with.
So, we’ll see how it goes with the other stuff – I’ll get it lined up to be done this week – but for now I’m feeling pretty content with where things are.
Nailed
Posted: Mon 8 January, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Health Leave a comment »My feet have a long history of being pretty unpleasant – and last year’s stuff didn’t help. However, let’s be honest, most people’s feet are pretty skanky in some way or other – it really is just degrees of mankiness, rather than it being something noteworthy. (Safe to say, I will never understand people who have a foot fetish, and particularly one for toes. *shudder*)
Anyway, in this particular case, it’s toenails that are the issue. The ones on my little toes have always been weird and tiny (which is a genetic hand-me-down from my mum, hers are exactly the same) but quite loose in some ways too, so I’ve pulled them out on a few occasions. (I can imagine some people wincing already. It’s only going to get worse, I warn you now) I’m used to that happening, and it doesn’t freak me out any more. (I assume it did on the first couple of times it happened, but I don’t recall them)
Last night, though, I noticed that a big patch of nail on one of my big toes had gone all pale and loose and weird, not in a way I’d seen before. So, me being me, I had a bit of an investigate, and it turned out that the whole big patch was loose, and just waiting to come off. A bit of a pull, and there it went, a good half of the nail, all at once.
Fortunately, it appears to have been replaced with new nail underneath – it’s not hurting, there’s no soreness or anything. It’s just… kinda gross.
So I thought I’d share. (But don’t worry, you’re not getting pictures) You’re welcome. 🙂
Retribution
Posted: Wed 13 December, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »As usual, my body has reacted negatively to the enforced day off on Sunday.
It’s no surprise – I’ve said before, any time I actually stop, I relax, and any illnesses that have been hanging around take the opportunity to pop in for a visit.
This time, it appears to be the start of a heavy cold. Nothing major, nothing that’ll stop me from the daftness of the next couple of weeks, but annoying all the same.
Among other things, I know that it’s another sign I’ve been doing too much, with little to no recovery time. As with everything else, that’s neither a surprise, nor news.
I’ll be fine, and all is good. One of those things, and it’ll all sort itself out over the Festering Season. In the mean time, I’ll be a bit snotty and a bit under the weather. But I’ll get through, as always.