MMPhoto: November 2011

Nov 23, 2011

Helicopter Crash Viaduct Auckland

After a couple of meetings I went to the Viaduct for a coffee it was such a nice day.

Noticing a crowd I checked it out and found this mess!

A hour earlier this chopper, as it was working on installing a mast of some kind, suddenly crashed.

Looks to me like one of the cables (no doubt being deployed in the process) got caught around one of the blades. What do you think? The mast is shown in the bottom picture.

Nov 22, 2011

One Year On

Warning this could be boring. But for the record. (see posts a year or so back)

Just one year ago our lives changed. A series of chest pain events and hospital "adventures" resulted in us finding out I had coronary artery disease and two blocked arteries. To cut a long story short Rob and I decided on a diet approach to try and halt and even reverse the problem over time. The background to this is well documented in a book called the China study and other books and science that followed. My cardiologist fully endorsed this approach but admitted that while it was a recognised approach, supported by scientific research, that most people would not consider it and try to do it exclusively with drugs. My own research showed me that drugs may slow the progress of the problem while a low fat, whole foods, plant based diet is known to halt and even reverse the problem. So we (read poor old Rob) started eating grass....... Well not quite.

The guts of the diet is: No animals of any kind, yes, eggs included and so are fish. No nuts, oils, avocado or cheese. No milk or dairy products. All plant based whole foods only. Yes and to continue on with the statins that I had already been on for about 15 years. God it sounded daunting!

Well, 12 long months later we are still learning, still alive and seemingly thriving if you go by recent tests.

Each day is a challenge especially for Rob who has to wonder what the hell we are going to eat today, everyday. But really she has become very expert in the field of what is close to vegan cooking while I have sat on the couch having a beer and just starving for the next meal...see what I mean!

The numbers

Rob

And this is amazing. Normally a women would loose bone density at the rate of 1% per year. Well compared to tests (Dexa Scan) done 4 years ago her density has increased 4%. This came as a real surprise as everyone who knew we had gone plant based said what about Calcium? While our research told us dairy actually will reduce you calcium.

My numbers over 12 months.

A very quick overview

Weight drop 13 kg's and now stable.

Cholesterol from 5.6 to 3.7.

LDL, the bad stuff, from 3.6 to 1.7 (my target was 1.5 to 2)

Triglycerides from 2 in Jan 2011 to 1 this week.

Drugs (Statins) from 40 mg to 30 mg last couple of months.

Whats it like?

Eating out it hard.

Eating in is great but we all need to get out occasionally.

Traveling is really hard. (Singapore Air was fantastic)

Bacon still has something that I really miss! Perhaps its the beautiful taste and same with Robs famous pizza.

Other wise we eat extremely well. I have lost some strength but as a ratio of body weight its about the same.

So for a couple of (cough) middle aged oldies alls ok so far. Thanks to our family for all their support. Good stuff.

Grace Scales Climbing Wall at Waimarino.

I was so proud of this effort by Grace and the shots don't fully show the true height. This is a hell of a big deal for a 5 year old kid. From the top she was lowered back down in free fall style!

Me? No way.

Girl In A Hat

Nov 19, 2011

Rena Update

The oil is off.

Now the container removal stage is underway. But the weather has come up bad with 30kt SW winds. This shot from 24km away shows the Sea Tow barge with cranes sitting at the stern as they try to remove the stack of containers that have fallen over, some went into the sea, but many more are ready to go as well so these have priority.