Laser Ablation of my Eye

I went for my third appointment at the ophthalmologist yesterday to see how my central serous retinopathy is progressing . I could have predicted the result, which was that there is not change, but I had to go through all the tests again. They did a laser raster scan of the back surface of my eye. In the first figure you can see the state of my left eye. The depression in the middle is the fovea where most of your vision is centred. 

Normal left eye

 However the right eye looks significantly different as can be seen in the second figure. The fluid has leaked into the subretinal space and detached most of the macula region of my eye from the back of my eye. This results, in my case, in blurred and distorted vision and deteriorated light sensitivity.

Faulty Right eye

This is what the scans looked like in August, and they haven't changed much. The cause can be seen better below in the fluoroscein angiogram pics. The white spot is where fluorescent dye is leaking out of my veins, pushing the fovea away from the back of my eye.

There has been very little change since August, so my doctor recommended I get the laser ablation. I thought there would be prep required and that I'd have to come back another day. I was wrong. The surgery took minutes, Renalda could attest...thinking about it now, I hope you closed your eyes babe!!

First they put more drops in my eye, this time an anesthetic, the previous time was to dilate the pupil. It was a bit uncomfortable, but not painful. You sit with your chin in one of those bucket things and look with your good eye at a predefined spot. Then he put a handheld lens onto the surface of my eye, which I tried to blink out. He then took aim, asked me to sit very still and shot a very bright laser onto the spot in my eye. Hopefully it was successful and I'll be able to see normally again soon!

Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens Walk

Gauteng has a few nice day hikes about and I'd wanted to do this one for a while. Walter Sisulu national botanical gardens is a little bit like Kirstenbosch in Cape Town, with wide open lawns and a large variety of plants, shrubs, trees and wild flowers. It's about 45mins drive from Pretoria. Not too bad for a Sunday walk, and it makes a nice change from our local, the Faerie Glen Nature Reserve.

The view of the gardens looking towards the waterfall

Myself, Renalda and Louis decided to spend our morning doing the walk. You start by walking past the outdoor amphitheatre, where they sometimes have concerts. That day the place was over run by girl guides in brown and yellow!

One of my favourite things about the walk was the giant insects and spider mounted in appropriate places.

Shelob awaits..

I really like dragon flies

This guy wood give Po a run for his money :P

Renalda and I in front of the waterfall

Louis looking very serious

 And then we walked up beside the fall to the top of the ridge, where I thought it was an easy hike, but it got harder and there was more of a climb. The veld god rocky with lots of interesting rock layers of different origin, sedimentary and igneous.

View from above looking roughly northwards

The hiar was getting a bit long!

Scary looking dude with 4 eyes :P

Lots of mooi blommetjies (pretty flowers)

Nog blommetjies (more flowers)

Nog meer blommetjies (still more flowers)

View of the layers of rocks above and the lawns below

All in all it was about a 2 hour walk, with a well deserved beer afterwards. If you haven't done it, give it a go, you won't be disappointed.

Kranskloof Hike - Mpumalanga

After putting in tons of effort getting fit and well equipped for the Fish River, we decided we should try to do a weekend hike at least every 6 weeks. The long weekend in September, due to Heritage Day, was too good an opportunity to miss, so I put out that call and got 6 others to join Renalda and I. This was the first time I'd really tested my leg after the operation, so we looked for an easy one.

Kranskloof is about 250km from Pretoria, we left early on Saturday, meeting at the Sasol petrol station on the N4 to Nelspruit. We decided to skip the more expensive toll road and traveled down to Carolina via Hendrina. That must be one of the bleakest roads in the country. Coal mines on either side, coal trucks and dust everywhere. I despaired that the hike was too close to this area and that it would be a waste of time...we were pleasantly surprised.

The trail is in a private nature reserve and there is a gravel road to get to the base camp. The condition of the road is ok, but the Toyota Run-X we were in bumped the ground on a number of occasions. If we had been in my car, I think it would have been worse. When we got to the parking lot, a very friendly chap named Richard came out to help us offload. And we needed lots of help!! The camp is not accessible by car and if we weren't doing an out and back hike we would have taken only what we could carry for a significant distance. That wasn't the case, so I planned a potjie for the first night and everyone brought tons of food.

The actual huts were basic, but well kitted out with a gas fridge and freezer, gas cooking, two hot showers with a donkey heater, flushing toilets, hot water for dishes. The huts sleep 24 people, but that would have been a squeeze, we spread out nicely between the three huts.

The hiking was good, but the trail on the first day was a bit confusing as we did an 8km hike as opposed to the promised 5km. I think we took a wrong turn, but otherwise it was very good. A decent variety of terrain, vegetation and views of the surrounding hills. Part of the second day's hike down to the lodge took us along the edge of a spectacular cliff, and then back below the same cliff. We stopped in at the lodge for a well deserved beer and headed back for a braai on night 2.

The huts cost R110 per person per night, but I think we all felt it was well worth it. Unfortunately I didn't take any photo's and don't feel comfortable publishing the pictures from the people who did.

Strength Training

I've been following the Primal Blueprint for most of this passed year with great success, but what I haven't been successful at is following the exercise routine. I exercise a lot and really enjoy it. but it's not regular and for that reason I don't think I've made as many gains physically as I'd like to. I did taper off working out before the Fish so that I could get hiking fit and strong. After the Fish was the op and eye trouble, so now I finally feel like getting back into it.

I'm going to do the Primal Blueprint Fitness Plan, which is available on Marksdailyapple. The "Lift Heavy Things", Primal Rule 3, section concentrates on 5  basic body weight movements, and allows you to progress from whatever condition you are currently in, up a ladder of movements to build your strength. I have done the self evaluation before and I wrote my results down, but can't remember the date. I'm mildly disappointed that I haven't progressed much!

These are the results:

• Pushups - 27 then 41 now
• Pullups - 3 then 4 now
• Squats - 61 then 71 now
• Dive Bombers - 8 then 9 now
• Plank - 60 seconds then 60 seconds now!!

So I'm going to try improve this significantly over the next few weeks.

Radio Frequency Catheter Ablation

I have arrhythmia, called atrial flutter, which can cause me to feel miserable and dictates that I take a rather nasty drug called cordarone/amiodarone. The drug potentially has numerous side effects including lung problems, eye trouble (not related to CSR), skin problems and digestive trouble. The catheter ablation was done to permanently repair my flutter, which would mean I could get off amiodarone, not to mention warfarin.

I've had the same procedure before, in about 2003 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. At that time it was unsuccessful as the electrical wiring of my heart was very very messy, and the doctor who did the procedure, Prof Okgreglicki who unfortunately passed away recently, doubted any further surgery would be any more successful. However the electro-physiologist I saw in Pretoria recently, convinced me that the technology had moved on significantly and considering my age, it was definitely worth a try.

So I went along on September 3rd and had the operation, no sweat. So what do they actually do? They make some incisions in your groin to gain access to your femoral artery, which supplies the most direct route to your heart. It is the same procedure they do for an angiogram. They then push a catheter up the artery into the heart, all the while viewing what's going on using radioactive dyes and a mobile Xray machine, which rotates around your chest. But I didn't see any of that this time as I was under general anaesthetic.
Then once they have an idea of what's going on in the heart, by doing stuff like giving you little shocks to pace your heart externally, they then burn the faulty neural pathways so that the spurious beats don't happen. One that was done I woke up talking nonsense to the doctors and nurses.

What the doctor said was that my wiring was still very bad, he said, electrically degenerate...heehee...crocodile clips anyone?Aand that while he knows he has fixed my rhythm at the moment, he thinks the chances are good the arrhythmia will return. Also he said that I have previously unreported calcification of my pericardium, the heart sack. This is usually indicative of a past infection of of TB. I don't remember having a previous infection, but perhaps my university days count. The doctor said that this problem is for the plumbers, he called himself an electrician, and that I should speak to my regular cardiologist in this regard, I have an appointment when someone else cancels, or else next year.

I think the most uncomfortable bit of my time in hospital was lying in bed without moving my legs. It was terrible.I kept the operation quiet, having lots of people coming to visit me in hospital is not my idea of fun, so only my family and Renalda knew I was there. She had to be kicked out by the night nurse :P The next worse thing was that I couldn't sleep, it was a mixed ward and on of the ladies was a HUGE snorer! I only got some rest after 4am when they started waking people up again!

I'd driven myself there stupidly, not remembering that even after a night in hospital, I would not be able to drive. So Renalda's folks kindly came to fetch me and drove me and my car home.

I'd been rather slack about keeping track of my INR and it was 1.2 when I had the operation. They were worried about clotting so I had to take some Clexane. I found out how much of a woes I am and how hardcore Renalda is. I held the injection to my belly for hours, but couldn't do it!! I'm not scared of needles, I just can't put one into my own skin. Renalda had to come do it for me.

It's taken me most of the month to recover fully. There was significant internal bleeding in my right leg and I still have a bruise. But I'm fine now, I went for a hike two weekends ago and played volleyball last Wednesday. Follow up appointment with the electrician later this month. 

Fish River Day 6, some ramblings and the trip home

We took it slow again on day 6, but we didn't have far to go, we had a lazy breakfast, although I think ours was nuts and some weak tea, and then strolled slowly towards the end. Probably having some bitter sweet emotions. The Fish was something I've always wanted to do, a Bucket List item, and before 2012, or perhaps late 2011 I really had never thought it would be safe for me to do it.

My physical condition this year has really been fantastic, even when you consider the eye and the operation I've had subsequent to the hike...wait for the post....I really have felt unbelievably strong and fit, and I attribute it to the Primal Blueprint mostly. Losing 14kg must have helped, hell my backpack was only 3kgs more than that! But the point is, it's a remote hike and if anything had gone wrong I would have put myself and other members of the hike in danger, and before this year I really wasn't prepared to do that.
So having minimal drama was something of a wonderful anticlimax. I had prepared well enough, was pretty fit by my standards, and didn't struggle at all. I had said I wanted to be fit enough to enjoy the scenery, and I did!
What is also interesting is that we actually had a perfect hike, the weather was perfect, there was tons of water, we had great company, with only a minimum of tension between the people wanting to finish earlier and us lazy ones. There is a dam just outside Ais-Ais, literally 200m from the camp site/hotel and as we crossed the dam wall, the wind picked up. There was sand blowing in our faces and as we drove home there was rain and the weather really started to come in. It was as if the weather was waiting for us to finish. As I said, a perfect hike.

The 6 slackers

We then had to get back to Upington that evening, to be in Pretoria late Sunday evening to go to work on Monday. So we had time for a nice soak in the hot baths and a beer with the peeps to say bye and to promise to hook up in Cape Town and to hike again. And then it was 90km on dirt road back towards the Namibian border at Ariamsvlei and then to find a backpackers to stay the night in Upington. The place we wanted to stay in was full, but they referred us to another place, where we slept and were up early for the long slog back, with some more stamps in the passport. Next mission? Otter trail! Who's in?

Fish River Day 5

On day 5 we woke up to more wonderful reflections and a beautiful sunrise over the much lower sides of the canyon. As I said we slept on the road and it was probably the best night's sleep we had, except perhaps for the next night. I think we were tired by the end of day 4 but I can't remember feeling any real stess about it. We knew the rest of the hike was going to be a doddle. So we took our time.

Sunrise over the Fish River

Four Fingers upstream from the road

Renalda's boots... there is proof :P

Absorbing the wonder of the place 

The group split up on day 5, it emerged that 4 people wanted to finish the hike that day. We wanted to leave relatively early on Saturday, but thought it pointless camping at the campsite when we could camp in the river and stroll out early the next morning. So the 4 people proceeded quicker than us. We stopped regularly to swim and make the most of the last full day in the canyon.
Truth be told it turned out to be a relatively easy hike...we weren't pushing to finish quickly, what would the point be? We'd driven more than 1000km to get to the cayon, why hurry to get out? Truth be told I think I only realised that on day 3 or 4.

More wild horses

Just before the end of the day we saw a herd of wild horses. The previous times we had seen them they were in two's. This herd had 5 or 6 horses, and there were 1 or 2 foals among them.
We camped within what we thought was about 1.5km of the end of the hike, in the middle or the river, on hard sand. We gathered tons of wood which I thought would never burn, but it did!

Bonfire

The last night's dinner for the cooks was rump steak with avo and... I can't remember what else, but it smelled delicious. We decided to try a fritata with our left over eggs and various rehydrated veggies. It worked quite well, but I think perhaps the eggs don't have the same sticking power as fresh ones. I wish I was there again tonight...

Vertical Gardening

I was recently referred to a gardening book, Vertical Gardening and Container Gardening - Ideas for Growing Vegetables and Herbs In Small Vertical Places Outdoors and Indoors - Joe Marshall and decided to give vertical gardening a go. It seems like a low maintenance way of growing your own produce. It's mobile and it doesn't require lots of bending over. An added bonus was that Renalda's family were looking to get rid of some 4" PVC pipe which is perfect for one of the projects he describes.

Below is a picture of 3 of the 7 pipes I made. I hope to grow spinach, mixed lettuce, tomato, green peppers, strawberries and a variety of mixed herbs. That way I can use the worm juice I make in my garage from my vegetable offcuts, and of course use some of the fruits of my compost heap.

My vertical veggie garden

If successful I'll certainly post some more pics... or dishes that I've made.

Fish River Canyon Day 4

There is something about sleeping under the stars, something Primal. That's another Primal Rule: get lots of sleep and I think we did on the hike. Other than the light of the campfire, your body lets you know that you should go to sleep when it gets dark. I love that!

Progress!!

I think day 4 was the day we all realised it was going to be ok and we were going to make it. Perhaps it was the big 40 and 50km signs we walked passed, or the fact that nothing much had gone wrong, and we were fit and strong, but by day 4 we were more relaxed. The scenery was amazing, as was every other day. The food was working mostly well for Renalda and I. At this stage the canyon had widened out nicely, and if you took the inside of the bend it felt like you were taking big shortcuts and making massive progress, but each one of these bends also took you far away from the river and reminded one once again that this is a desert! But when you got back to the river, it always invited you in for a swim!

More Progress!!

Amazing intrusions into the rock, like God was mixing playdough

I just had to take a pic of a dead tree...not a terribly good one

Signs of Humanity

The river clay is baked hard into blocks that can be lifted, neither of us had seen it like you see in the movies.

This is definitely a desert

By then end of day four and after sleeping in the sand for the first three nights, we had learned that cold hard rock is better than warmer sand. So when we got to the campsite for that night we decided that the best place to sleep was on the cement weir. And I think I slept the bast that night so far. It's interesting how you get used to sleeping out, in a sleeping bag with nothing but fresh air around you. But the hard ground definitely helped and there is no question about it in the future. If there is no soft grass, hard ground or rock wins hands down.

Our bed for night 4 in the bottom right

Hiking with Central Serous Retinopathy

I've never thought of myself as a stressed out person, but it seems that perhaps I am. I thought I'd put this in between the Fish River posts because I had it while hiking and I had my second test today. More on that later.

I'd had a really busy few months running up to the Fish River, with trying to be fit enough, organising suitably primal food, travelling for work and travelling for friends and family weddings, I hadn't spent much time relaxing in the passed 6 months. I'm not complaining about having a busy time, I quite enjoy it, but on some level it seems my body does not like it.

I arrived back from my cousin's wedding in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday and left for Namibia that same Saturday. Truth be told I had noticed a visual oddity on Thursday or Friday and "watched" it move slowly from the bottom left of my centre of vision. I briefly considered going to a doctor, but with the possibility of not being able to hike I decided to chance a week in the middle of nowhere with an eye that was misbehaving. I thought it couldn't be particularly bad.

As the hike progressed the visual impairment grew over my centre of vision, but I didn't allow it to worry me too much, I'd deal with it when I got home. I didn't want to leave all the diving back to Pretoria to Renalda, so I didn't tell her about it. The Monday I returned I went straight to a doctor, who referred me straight to an ophthalmologist. A barrage of tests later, I was diagnosed with Central Serous Retinopathy, which is a temporary detachment of the retina due to fluid build up behind it. the laser profile picture are quite revealing, when comparing the normal eye to the bad one. It's like there is a blister where my retina should attach to the back of my eye!

Anyway, the doctor said it was stress related and that it should go away in about 3 months, but that I should come back in 6 weeks. Today was that return visit. I'm quite sure that before last week my eye was on the heal, but one relatively rushed proposal later and I noticed the shape of the disturbance changing again, growing. So today the laser profile pics confirmed that, while it has improved significantly it is far from fixed. The doctor feels that laser surgery is an option as the fluid leak originates away from the centre of vision, but he wants to wait for another 6 weeks before going that route. So in 6 weeks I will know more.

In the mean time I've asked my boss if I can work from home, and I guess I should speak to someone about the way I handle stress...

Fish River Day 3

The third day started at the Sulphur pools. As I said in the previous post, some of the group relaxed in the pools in the morning. Renalda and I decided to head off early and have breakfast at the first stop, but we kept ahead of the group for way too long, so we stopped in the river bed to make breakfast and wait for people to join us. Not before we saw some more fantastic scenery and some wild horses!!

Tons of dead still water in the river, reflecting the cliffs in the morning

The illusive wild horses apparently descended from German occupation forces

This is what a real pothole should look like

  We were able to cook before everyone arrived and were visited by some baboons while waiting. When Cath, the doctor joined us she experimented with our “Staal drupple” home remedy for blisters… it was apparently agony! I fined Ian for leaving some oats-so-easy packets at the camp site.

Another thing I should mention is that I’d planned to hike most of the river in my Vibram 5 Fingers, but I carried 1.6kg worth of boots in case! I have a pair of Bakila LS’s and they were awesome. Mostly excellent grip and no blisters, it gives an added dimension to the hike. I had done a significant amount of training with them and my feet were tough enough. Please don’t just go and hike in them, rather ease into barefoot hiking. You get to feel the terrain underfoot, sand is soft, sharp stones poke you, your feet curl around round stones. After a day of walking it feels like your feet are tired, but the next morning they are fine again. Sand did bother me a bit, and I wore my boots one of the days because I got the Vibrams wet. But after a while the sand didn’t bother me much, I just stopped and emptied them.

Baboon prints

Ian doing pushups for his fine

At this stage some of the group, including us, were worried about getting to the end on time, because it seemed like we were dawdling a bit, so we pushed really hard that day. With two people struggling bad boots and most people having some blisters we were exhausted at the end of the day, but found a fantastic campsite in between a bunch of wind breaking trees. 

We had our dehydrated supper, and watched in amazement as Cath brought out ingredients for a fantastic Thai curry wrap meal! And Liquorice alsorts dessert.  

I guess the next primal rule we can mention is to move a lot, but slowly. What could be better than hiking to live up to this primal rule, but I’ve realised I have 5 posts to talk about Mark Sisson’s 10 primal rules, so I’ll throw in, getting some sunlight everyday as another rule. Unfortunately in my daily life it is very difficult to get this right. Office life does not allow....I'd rather be hiking.

Fish River Canyon Day 2

Unfortunately it does get a bit fuzzy as the hike was more than 6 weeks ago, so I'm using the pictures to jog my memory. Day 2 was still deep within the canyon and there were many rocks to clamber over. It was slow going, but if I'm not mistaken, it ended at the sulphur pools, which was not recommended in the guide, but it was actually awesome. What wind there was, was merciful in its direction so we didn't smell much of the sulphur while camping.

If anything the spring water was too hot making it necessary to sit at the interface between the cold river water and the hot spring water. But it was luxury for the tired bodies. Some of the group woke up early the next morning to lie in the hot water before we set off.

I'm trying to follow Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint, so all the food we packed was high protein and high fat, with a lot of dehydrated veggies thrown in. I mentioned Primal Rule 6: Play in a previous post, but this was Primal Rule 1: eat lots of meat and vegetables (and avoid starches). It worked very well, I never felt the need for energy drinks or sugar sweets.

We had dehydrated eggs and bacon, which we rehydrated and ate for breakfast to the cereal eaters dismay every morning. Some mornings we ate eggs with canned mussels, try it! Fantastic! Lunch was fatty biltong (dried meat) or droewors (dried sausage) with nuts and dried fruit, it never gets tired. Supper was mixed dehydrated veggies with either dehydrated mince or tuna from a sachet. These menus could do with some work, and knowing how much we are capable of carrying (and what our fellow hikers carried) may make the menu choices a bit more exciting next time.

Four of our fellow hikers held an internal cooking competition! Night 1 was filet steak. I think night 2 was macaroni and cheese. I'll try to add their meals in in the next posts, but it was really yummy fresh food.

Morning in the canyon, dead still river pools of sweet water

Me and my bokkie, Renalda and I'm wearing boots... more on that in the next post

Ebony and Ivory living together in perfect harmony

But don't forget this is a desert

Fish River Hike - Run up and Day 1

I should have posted about this ages ago, but didn't so here I go. Hiking the Fish River Canyon in Namibia has always been a dream for me. It is the second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon in the US. The hike is only possible during the winter months when the river level is low enough and the temperature is cool.
Before late 2011 early 2012 I would never have thought it possible that I could do it. It's a very inhospitable environment. For much of the hike the only reasonable exit possibility is via helicopter, so you need to be quite certain you are fit and strong enough to complete it without putting your fellow hikers at risk. Having the medical condition I do I never believed it safe for me to do it. That has changed.
When a friend from Cape Town put out the call on Facebook that there was a possibility, I decided to do it, no questions. As it go nearer to the date of the hike in early August, Renalda (my girlfriend) and I started doing regular day hikes around Pretoria to make sure we were fit enough, taking heavier and heavier packs with us on the hikes. I also hiked most of the training hikes in my Vibram Five Fingers, which were awesome.
As we drove to Namibia the weekend before the 5 night hike, I started to feel like I had a head cold. This did not go away and with people talking about others not going because they had a cold, I got a sinking feeling that I should not do the hike. However, having a doctor and a pharmacist on the hike had it's perks, and they convinced me that I would be fine and should come.
We decided to take the bus to the lookout point and make the decision at the point of no return. As we got closer to canyon country I caught glimpses of the cliff faces we would be walking below. Once we arrived and after seeing the majesty of the canyon, there was no choice. We started down into the canyon.

So 10 of us started the treacherous descent climbing down to the bottom of the 550m deep canyon. It took us just over 2 hours and we had lunch at the bottom, being pleasantly surprised at the volume of water still in the river. There was already a boot casualty when we got to the bottom and I learned why duct tape is a hiking essential. I was feeling mostly good, elated that I'd come, hoping that I hadn't been stupid and wondering if I'd have to use the exit.
There is an "exit" on day 2 which is actually a massive hike back out the canyon. If I got really sick either I, or someone else would need to hike out to get to help. I hoped it was not going to be needed.
We hadn't gone very far by the end of the first day because the terrain was rough with lots of boulders. Of course the sun sets below the the canyon wall quite early, so by about 5pm it was getting quite dark and it was very dark by 6. I was given antibiotics by the medics just in case. We found some firewood, had some supper, made a sandy bed and got to know our fellow hikers better over a sip of whiskey or whatever else got passed around.

Just an update

Since January my BMI has droppped to 23.2 and I weigh in at about 67kg. I've been ill for the past few weeks so I've not really done much exercise and have probably not eaten quite as I should. Before that I was up to 9 pullups. I'll need to do a bit of work to get there again, but I'm having no trouble slowly shedding the last bit of weight.

I'm dancing 2 or 3 times a week now, depending on socials on Fridays and I'm about to start playing a weekly game of Volleyball (Primal Law 6 - Play).

Vibram sprints

There's something about running uphill as fast as you can. I did some weekly sprints last year, but this was the first one I did this year so far. It was AWESOME. I bought myself some Vibram Five Fingers at the end of 2011 and I must admit I had some misgivings as they didn't fit perfectly to start with. My feet are really square and my small toe was really tight, however after a few walks they seem like a perfect fit now.

I was a bit ambivalent about using them today, but I'm glad I did. My previous sprints were done on flat ground, which is probably less safe than running uphill even if it takes more effort. I'll do hill sprints next week again.

I'm vaguely following the Primal Blueprint exercise program, but as encouraged, I'm not being very strict about it. It's been the most natural way to keep fit I've ever tried, I don't feel bad if I skip a workout. I only workout when I feel like it. I don't go to gym, I do pushups, squats, pullups and planks at home. I don't let myself get tired, when I start getting tired I stop. I don't do ANY distance running anymore, which I realise now made me very tired and was probably not suitable for someone with a cardiac history.... or anyone for that matter. I walk lots, and from yesterday, I dance once more. Can't think of any better way to keep fit!!

Different Goals

After my last post, I went for a cadioversion to fix my heart rythm and was put on cordarone again, a nasty rythm modifying drug. However, in conjunction with that a friend pointed me to a website about a different lifestyle idea. It's based on the premise that we should try to live as closely to how we lived before the agricultural revolution. No grains, processed foods or sugars, but copious amounts of organic vegetables, meat, fish, nuts and fruit. Basically, if you can pick it or kill it, it'll be good to eat.

Also ones exercise patterns would have been different, and this way of keeping fit seems to suit me well. Lot's of "slow moving", some heavy lifting, and some occasional sprinting. Guess what, I don't feel tired after workouts/runs anymore. I've been in sinus rythm since (currently with a much lower dose of drugs)

I did a body composition test in January 2010... I know a long time ago, but my weight hadn't varied much until I decided to lose it on purpose. At that stage I had 22.6% body fat, and a BMI of 28 which makes me obese. Currently I have 13.1% body fat and my BMI is 23.8. I'm feeling much stronger and fitter than I have in years as I'm carrying 12kg less weight around.

However I think I'd still like to loose some more fat and put on more muscle, what that means for my weight is difficult to say, but I suspect I'll settle at about 65kg.

Current goal? Have a picture of Mark with a six pack... just once in my life!