Time to start the precautionary-winter-lard-up.

[Ricard with an H]

No twinky bars though and cut down on anything like that apple tray bake she did at the weekend. I couldn't keep away.

I'm mostly a slim figure of 70 kilos (11 stone), I used to be 6 foot but I shrunk to around three inches below. At times I've been 80 kilos (Just over 12 stone) during winter at times I was holed-up trying to keep dry and warm then tucking into things.

So, no twinkies. Even good white bread made with plenty of added seeds and a hearty bowl of soup is more nutritious than eating a lot of cake.

Our local dog Fox who's life expectancy is down to him keeping ahead of Owen James's gun and traps has piled on a few pounds ready for winter already so I assume it's good for us though I suppose he gets a restricted diet when we-all start tucking-in for Christmas.

[Motherwoman]

I thought perhaps you were going for a good coating of goose fat over the body, tying on the brown paper and sewing yourself into the long johns for winter Richard.

I crave chocolate this time of year, I don't particularly bother with it in summer (unless someone buys me Thornton's summer collection, to die for, other chocolate manufacturers are available) but for bliss on a cold dark night choccies are the indulgence of choice.

MW

[Ricard with an H]

Mo is the same, she's all chocolate and twinkles. In fact she's on a truffles making course at Kate Humbles farm just before Christmas.

I'm all savory until my blood sugar drops from under-eating then I can eat a pile of anything sweet until the red-mist subsides.

I'm not a diabetic, just don't always eat enough to keep the engine going.

[Motherwoman]

That's what my old work mate Don (incredible grower, taught me loads when I was an apprentice in horticulture) used to call 'feeling a bit leer', he always reckoned that was when your body had used up the easily available energy and was starting on the reserves!

MW

[Ricard with an H]

Don was absolutely right.

Unless you are aerobically trained the point where blood-sugars run out and body fats are utilised (Aerobic threshold) is at quite a low heart-rate so you run out of fuel. A lot of aerobic activity pushes this thresh-hold to a higher heart rate which means being able to use less blood sugars and more body fats.

It's why you won't see heavily built endurance sportsmen/athletes.

Working an allotment regularly would raise your thresh-hold so you can keep going longer, many people trying to achieve aerobic fitness over do it, consequently they start burning blood sugar then the target of the aerobic point is missed. They get home very tired and need to eat cake or anything sweet, the body needs a quick sugar fix so it makes you crave choco-treats, twinkie bars et-al.

The body is wonderful, don't you think. What happens next is it sends a dose of insulin into your bloodstream in order to deal with the increase in sugar and you get another low blood sugar situation which makes you crave another piece of cake. Then what happens is .................................. Fat bum and beer-belly.

[Motherwoman]

I suppose that's why we should eat oats and the like which have a slow burn.

But not as good as chocs!

MW

[Primrose]

I try to eat Old Fashioned porridge twice a week to help use up all the soft fruit in our freezer to accompany it but confess to feeling rather envious and slightly hard done by when I catch the waft of grilled smoked back bacon aroma from my husband's plate across the table.

We did once experiment trying to,produce a savoury porridge to combine the beat of both world but it was a disaster. Has anybody ever managed to produce a successful one ? Somehow bacon or Bovril porridge just doesn,t work, and is a hundred miles away from Mystery or "bottom of the fridge" soup which usually does!

[Ricard with an H]

Yes, carbohydrate with a little fat is perfect and oats are fatty. Sugar is carbohydrate though it would require an act of god for me to remember the chain variations.

I used to use oat cakes to keep me going on the moors and mountains, even worse was rice cake. Like eating polystyrene though it did encourage hydration.

Yuk.

I still hate oat cakes.

[Diane]

It's muesli for me..from the local health food shop - that's what floats my boat..with Lidl plain chocolate for afters. I think I could possibly live on that (for a while, anyway). A sprinkle of blueberries from my garden added to the muesli with dollop of bio yoghurt.

I'm 5' 2", 7 st 7 lbs and do quite a lot of aerobic and heavy weight lifting stuff. Which is not bad for a 68 year old pensioner.

[Ricard with an H]

Same here Diane.

More particularly during summer and depending on my days chores, if I need to keep going it's a full bowl of fruit muesli with milk. If we have banana I'll eat one as well and that'll keep me going until about 3. It's my aches and pains that usually make me pack in rather than energy loss.

This time of year is less energetic though I'm always busy trying to catch up with outstanding jobs that need doing, if the weather changes I often have to do a U turn. Right now I have twenty broccoli plants under cover and in pots that need planting. Everything is ready for them including mini poly-tunnels though fleece and netting might be better because of the wind.

I just need another dry day, the last dry was taken up inappropriately shredding cosmos planting but I wanted to play with my new boys-toy.

I was 17 when I was first ridiculed by my mother or maybe my sister because any spare cash I had I would tools and they were "Boys-Toys" 55 years later I'm still buying "Boys-Toys" but it's different females saying the same thing.

I just polished-off the Sundays remainder of the apple tray bake from a near farm windfalls. That'll keep me going.

[oldherbaceous]

I must admit, over the last couple of years, i put a few pounds on over the Winter months. This is more down to bacon dumplings and stew and dumplings and many more heavy wnter meals....i do hae a soft spot for dumplimgs and they would draw me many miles...

[Ricard with an H]

.i do hae a soft spot for dumplimgs and they would draw me many miles...

Lovely-fabulous and precisely my point, is it time to start the precautionary weight-gain or as they say where I grew up, "Lard-up".

I love dumplings, for me it turns a soup into something special particularly if you get-em-right.

Same with good fresh bread and there are so many more artisan bakers these days we don't need to eat the square white slices if we don't want too. It doesn't seem that long ago that we didn't have many choices and though the Polish Jews and German ex prisoners of war introduced some of us to good bread it seems the euro-tastes are changing and the heritage grains they used to grow and use are no longer favoured.

Dumplings then, I can only eat dumplings in a meaty-type soup rather a a vege-type. Is it me ?

[Motherwoman]

My mum does superb herby dumplings for a chicken stew and if you take the lid off the pan and pop it in the oven for ten minutes the tops go crunchy... I'm salivating!!!

[Ricard with an H]

if you take the lid off the pan and pop it in the oven for ten minutes the tops go crunchy... I'm salivating!!!

I'm also salivating and thanks for the tip.

[oldherbaceous]

We've got a steamed steak and kidney pudding tonight.....i'm pacing up and down the corridor to the east wing, already....