NotTv: Pandemic new skills

[Doug Eastick]

The talk of Rachel Ray cookware made me wonder if others have developed new skills or hobbies during the pandemic.

About 6 months ago I put in more effort on how to use our 12 inch cast iron skillet:  Use, care, maintenance, recipes, etc.    My experience with cast iron prior to this was that everything stuck horribly to the surface.  Turns out that with a good coating if seasoning (polymerized oil) the surface is largely non stick.

I've also become the Instant Pot guy in the house.  So much that I've been told to back off frequency of stews etc.

So, what's your New Thing since covid?

Running?

Baking?

Yoga?

Tv?

Meditation?

Car detailing?

YouTube and Reddit have been great resources.

[Adam Bowie]

My cooking hasn't notably improved over the last few months, but what I have put my efforts into is getting fitter - and lighter. I was overweight (let's be honest - obese), and although I've always cycled a fair amount, I was eating badly. 

So last summer I started a healthy diet. Not any particular scheme or brand, just cutting out rubbish, and doing portion control. Then I used a 'Couch to 5K' app to get back into running. I say "back", but although I did the London Marathon in 1999 that was a company thing I did one time - not really having run before or since. There are lots of running apps out there, but the one I used had a nice week by week tutorial that gets you up to running 5K from just sitting on your sofa (couch) in 9 weeks. My longest recent run is now around 16k (10 miles or so). And my cycling volumes are way up too. Planning a 100 mile ride this weekend. I've done that distance before, but I'm much lighter now. I'm all Garmin and Strava these days doing the whole "quantified self" thing.

As of this morning, my BMI is below 25 for the first time since, probably college, and I'm a "healthy weight", having shed 50 kg or 110 lbs since August...

The downside is that none of my clothes now fit me.

That's been the story of my lockdown.

Adam

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[Kevin M.]

Gardening. It began as something for my new family to do outside in the yard, as we live in a small house and didn’t want to be constantly stepping over each other during the lockdown. Some things have grown really well, others not so much. And the less said about the mysterious pumpkins that grew on dead vines, the better.

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Doug Eastick]

congrats Adam.    My BMI is still too high, and I have the Garmin and Strava data to confirm that it is not going down much.  Hopefully now that Canadian winter is getting behind us, I can improve on that front. 

I tried to follow you on Strava, but more than one of you is listed.     If you search for me, I'm probably the only Doug Eastick with pro subscription.   Most trips are auto-tracked from when I walk my dog in the evening :)

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Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca>

[Adam Bowie]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 3:16 PM Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca> wrote:

congrats Adam.    My BMI is still too high, and I have the Garmin and Strava data to confirm that it is not going down much.  Hopefully now that Canadian winter is getting behind us, I can improve on that front. 

I tried to follow you on Strava, but more than one of you is listed.     If you search for me, I'm probably the only Doug Eastick with pro subscription.   Most trips are auto-tracked from when I walk my dog in the evening :)

I've just requested following you on Strava so you should find the right "me." I'm usually a black Labrador on the socials - although I don't actually have a dog myself. That was my parents' dog many years ago which I've adopted for social media purposes.

I am not the Canadian journalist Adam Bowie, who works for a group of newspapers in New Brunswick. For a while his papers' social media colleagues got our Twitter handles messed up, and I was constantly being linked to various goings in and around Fredericton!

(I'm also not the Adam Bowie who is in the US Army Reserves, and  for a while didn't seem to know his proper Gmail address. I was regularly cc'd on his upcoming travel arrangements for when he was off on training trips etc.)