Tag Archives: PGS

November Challenge – 2 wks in ~

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I’m two weeks into my November Challenge, and this is my Report Card.
I’d give myself a B+.

The challenge I set myself for the month of November was:
– A walk each day of no less than 45 mins.
– No added salt on my food.
– No processed sugar.

Pretty simple you might think, huh?
Well, actually, no.
It was damn hard.
Salt and sugar have been my two major addictions.
I’d put salt on everything.
Chocolate was my real weakness.

I needed a circuit breaker.
Hence, the November Challenge.

The stats are in the spreadsheet below, but basically last week Jennifer and I drove up to Avoca to attend the Coastal Surge International Film Festival, organised by Glenn Fraser and Amelia Foxton – which was great fun. Then onto Brisbane to see my mum, who’s 97 yrs old. A round trip of 2,200km in five days.

On four of those days I wasn’t able to exercise. What with the long days driving (sometimes 700km+ in a day, with very early starts and socialising at the festival and family get togethers and what-have-you, it simply wasn’t possible.

The good news is though that I’ve gone the full two weeks without adding salt to any of my meals. And I’ve not had any chocolate, no sweets, no ice-cream… except ~

I fell off the wagon twice. Both were social occasions. Once at a family dinner when my sister put out some dessert and it would have been rude of me to refuse!

The other was a dinner hosted by a Camino friend. She’d just come back from walking the Frances and she and her husband put on fabulous spread that included nougat (I’m a sucker for nougat!) and home-made ice-cream.

Did I say I fell off the wagon?
I did a high dive off a 25m platform!

Two times I had sugar. And I have to say each day after I felt nauseous. My body couldn’t handle the major sugar hit. It was very interesting.

With the walks, sometimes it wasn’t possible to walk so I did 45mins on the indoor bike. I’ve got a gym quality bike set up in our tv room so I’d watch a Liverpool Premier League game or the next episode of Disclaimer and cycle 45mins.

The bike’s good because I can push myself harder than if I was walking (because of my bung knee) – but there’s nothing better than getting out early on a crisp spring Mudgee morning and starting your day with a brisk walk.

Walking also strengthens tendons and muscles and ligaments that are activated by walking on uneven ground, or up and down hills. I’ve found that the walking has also strengthened my back muscles considerably. I have two metal plates screwed into my spine and I get fairly regular back pain. The walking has helped alleviate the pain.

Overall, the biggest benefit of the two weeks is that I’ve broken the addiction urges. I’ve discovered that having salt, eating sugar, is a choice.

Before this, it wasn’t a choice. I’d sit down to a meal, I’d immediately put salt on my food. Choice never entered into it. That’s just what I did.

Similarly, at night after dinner I’d sit down to watch telly with Jennifer and I’d break out a block of chocolate. Rarely did we finish the night’s viewing with any of that chocolate left.

We devoured it.
I devoured it.

That hasn’t happened this past fortnight.
I’ve kicked that habit.

I’m only halfway through so we’ll see how I go the next two weeks, but so far it’s been a very worthwhile exercise.

But really, it’s a bit sad I need to go to these extreme lengths, don’t you think?

Day#2 November Challenge – my first real test.

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Did I say I love chocolate?
Did I say I was addicted to chocolate?
Did I say that not having chocolate for a month would be my biggest challenge?

Last night, Day#1 of my November Challenge, I faced my first real test. I always make Jennifer a cup of tea after dinner, and we usually sit down to watch telly – with a bar (or two) of chocolate with the cup of tea.

Last night I had to hand over a bar (or two) of chocolate to Jennifer with her cup of tea – and not have any myself.

We usually have Whittaker’s chocolate, made in New Zealand – and it’s delicious. Last night’s chocolate was Pear with Manuka Honey. Can you really think of anything more yummy than that?

I can’t.
It was difficult.
But I met the test.
I abstained.

This morning I did my walk again. I did 4.14km in 51mins. A bit faster than yesterday. My knee twinged worryingly for the first km or so, then it settled down.

Interestingly, I dropped 0.7kg over the 24hr period. I’m not altering my eating – going on a diet as such – other than abstaining from added salt and sugar. We’ll see if this is a continual thing.

Tomorrow is a travel day. I’m either going to have to get up early and do my walk before we leave, or do it at the end of the day.

Already though I’m noticing benefits. I feel my back getting stronger, and so too my core muscles. Given that I have two metal plates bolted into the lumbar region of my spine, holding two fractured vertebrae in place, back pain is an ongoing issue for me.

It has been since 1976 when I was a passenger in a film vehicle that crashed into a telegraph pole, putting me in the Spinal Unit of Royal North Shore Hospital for nearly three months. It was touch and go whether I’d be a quadraplegic.

That’s a whole other story.

For now, I’m Day#2 of my November Challenge, and enjoying it!

My November Challenge has started!

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Today, being the 1st of November here in Australia, I started my November Challenge.

My November Challenge is walking a minimum of 45 minutes every day of the month, and abstaining from salt and sugar for the entire month.

It’s going to be hard.

I have travel coming up this month – fortunately only internal domestic travel – but even so that makes exercise difficult. And I notice that some of you have suggested that I take the occasional rest day.

Nup.

One of the difficulties I will face is my knee. Those of you who have read my Camino memoir, The Way, My Way, or seen the movie, know that I have a bung knee. Basically, my knee joint lacks cartilage. Or to use the vernacular, it’s bone-on-bone.

I refuse to get a knee replacement. And so my knee continues to be an issue. I’ve developed a way of walking that minimises the pain, and yet it’s still bothersome. And sometimes it’s downright agony. So I’ll see how that plays out over the month.

But this morning, first day of the Challenge, I felt great. It was a beautiful fresh Spring morning and I walked for 54 minutes – 4kms – so it wasn’t too demanding. In Mudgee people I meet on my walk want to chat, so I stop and chat, and that messes with my stats somewhat – but this isn’t about pushing myself. This is about consistency.

By the way, Nordic walking is the best!

My November Challenge ~

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November is going to be a challenging month for a lot of us, I believe.

The US elections and its aftermath are going to dominate world attention for a period, and yes I’m sure the outcome, whichever way it goes, will be challenging for some.

My November challenge is something else.

It’s been 6 ½ years since I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and next year I have one of the most physically demanding periods of my life coming up.

There’s a chance that I might be shooting my Indian thriller, Those that Love, Those that Kill, in January and part of Feb in northern India. It will be a tough shoot.

Even if that doesn’t happen, come mid February Jennifer and I embark on a gruelling Q&A tour of the US, doing 30 screenings of The Way, My Way right across the US in 35 days.

That’s a punishing schedule even for a young ‘un.
And I’m no longer a young ‘un!
Hence, my November challenge.

I need to get fit for the year coming up. Already I’ve been ramping up my exercise routine, but I need to do more. Plus, I have two addictions that I have to tame: Salt & Sugar.

I put excessive salt on everything. Crazy, right? But that’s the nature of addiction. Plus I am addicted to chocolate of an evening.

Both have to stop.
I need to break the craving, and the only way I can do that is to take the nuclear option.

So here is my November Challenge:

  1. I’ll walk at least 45 minutes a day, every day. If I can’t walk for whatever reason, I’ll do 45 minutes on an indoor bike. But every day for the month of November I’ll walk or bike a minimum of 45mins.
  2. I’ll cut salt from my diet completely. By that, I mean I won’t add salt to a meal.
  3. I’ll cut sugar from my diet completely. No chocolate, no desserts, no cakes or sweets. No lemon and chocolate gelato ice creams, which I love.

There’s no doubt that #3, cutting sugar, will be the hardest.

And you might think that walking 45 minutes a day for a Camino walker is no big deal. But you have to understand that my Parkinson’s disease has severely limited my ability to walk long distances. It’s taken me quite some time to even do 45 minutes at a reasonable clip.

So to do it every day for a month is going to be challenging. But I’ll be using my Nordic walking poles, and that helps enormously.

I’ll do a weekly audit on this blog. I’ll detail what I’ve done the previous week.
If I falter, I’ll tell you.

This is going to be tough.
But tomorrow it starts!

Why don’t you do your own version of a November Challenge too, and we’ll do it together?

ME time ~

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I’ve decided to gift myself some ME Time.

What’s ME Time?
(notice I capitalise me? That’s to emphasis to myself that I’m important!)

ME Time is time for me. For my nourishment, replenishment, for my growth. Because I can’t give out to others if I’m a stunted withered soul.

It’s like what they tell you as you’re about to take off on a flight –
(remember those times?)
Grab the oxygen mask and use it yourself before you look to share it with others.

Same deal with ME Time.

We have this perfect opportunity right now during this pandemic. Many of us here in Australia are in lockdown, or we’re working from home, or for whatever reason we find that we have more disposable time on our hands than we’ve ever had before.

It’s a perfect opportunity to grab some ME Time.

So what is ME Time?

For me I’ve decided to institute a daily routine of yoga and meditation, every day without fail. 20 minutes of yoga minimum, 20 minutes of meditation minimum. That’s not too onerous, right? I can find 40 mins at the beginning of each day. And that then sets me up for the rest of the day.

What I’m finding though is that the 20 minutes yoga often becomes 30-40 minutes because I get into it. Same with the meditation. I end up doing 30 minutes or more. And that’s great. But bare minimum, 20/20.

That’s me – my thing. Your thing might be gardening. Or sewing. Or getting out on a bike. Or cooking. Whatever it is that gives you pleasure, and nourishes your soul. Simply getting out into nature is good ME Time.

This whole pandemic has made me reassess what’s important. And yes family is important. Of course. And those that I love.

But I’m also important.
My health.
My well being.
My mental state.

This is not selfishness, this is not narcissism.
This is survival.

And like I say, I can’t hope to give out to others if I’m depleted.
Physically, mentally, emotionally.

I’ve been watching this show on telly called Alone. In Australia it’s on SBS on Demand. It’s a reality tv show where ten people are dropped off into remote wilderness and they have to survive for as long as possible. And the last man, or woman, standing wins $500,000. The unique twist to this is that there’s no crew. They film themselves. So they are totally alone.

I’ve never watched a reality tv show before. I’m serious. Never. They’ve always seemed too contrived and manipulative for my tastes. But there’s something very real and authentic about this show. And what’s interesting about it is that as the days click by and as it gets tougher and tougher, these people become more inward looking, and dare I say it, spiritual.

And invariably, what causes them to tap out and ask to be picked up and taken back to civilisation is often not because they’re starving, or they’re scared of bears or cougars or whatever, but because they miss their loved ones, or because they break mentally.

Interestingly. so far with the seasons I’ve watched, none of them meditate.

But I mention this in relation to ME Time because we can so easily forget that we need to look after ourselves. In the past we have so often defined ourselves by our work, by what we do, that’s who we are. But this pandemic has forced many of us to redefine ourselves outside of our work, because we’ve either lost our jobs or our jobs have changed or we’ve realised that perhaps there are other more significant ways to consider ourselves, other than through work.

For many of us, the work ethos that we thought was crucial we’ve discovered isn’t that crucial anymore.

What’s crucial is ME Time.

Where do Your Ideas come from?

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I get asked this question quite a lot – often when I launch a new film or book.
Where do your ideas come from?
And I always give the same answer –

I dunno.

And I don’t.
I don’t have a bloody clue.
I’m just thankful the ideas do come.
But I’m often disappointed that the ideas aren’t better.

I often seem to be given those shop-soiled heavily-discounted
last-season ideas that must have been dragged from the bottom
of the remainders bin near to the express check-out in the
Cheap Ideas SupaStore, you know, the one in that part of town
where you risk getting mugged.

Why can’t I get better ideas?
Why can’t I get ideas from the Oscar-winning, Palm d’Or-winning,
Booker-winning stores that the people I admire shop at?

These elite stores are inaccessible to me, it seems.
When they see me coming they flip the sign on their
front door from OPEN to CLOSED.
They close the shutters and put out the garbage.
If I pound on the door and insist they open up they call security.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to be happy with my
last season heavily discounted shop soiled ideas.

I’ll put lipstick on them.

Anyway, back to Where do Your Ideas come from?

I was listening to a podcast the other day and this woman was talking about a book she’d just written, and she proudly announced that she had channelled it.

Like that made it special.
Like that made her special.

Give me a bloody break.
Get over yourself sweetheart, as Caroline Myss would say.
Get off your pretentious self-serving high horse.

EVERYTHING is channelled.
ALL ideas are channelled.
Except most of us don’t know it,
or recognise it, or acknowledge it.

We all get ideas all the time, we just don’t value them. Or we don’t trust them. Or we don’t know what to do with them. We haven’t developed the skills to do something with them, or we don’t wish to develop those skills.

An idea can change your life.
It can change the lives of others.
It can change the world.

But where do your ideas come from?

Source.



Psst! Wanna hear a Conspiracy Theory?

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There’s a lot of conspiracy theories flying around at the moment.

Poor much maligned Bill Gates.
Poor much maligned 5G
Poor much maligned microchips.

Here’s one for you:

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are using nanotechnology and cryptocurrency to create a world-wide pedophile ring of nubile young aliens brought back to earth by Jeff Bezos on his last space flight. The VIP client list for this ring include Bill and Hilary Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein, who is not dead but has been hiding out on a luxury yacht in international waters working with Donald Trump on his new presidential bid. Donald Trump by the way died of COVID that time he went to hospital and the CIA along with George Lucas have secretly created a robotic clone of him that’s indistinguishable from his original self. George Lucas has locked in his personal vault the original footage that Stanely Kubrick shot for NASA of the moon landing which never happened but was faked by Kubrick after the great work he did on 2001 – A Space Odyssey. Oh and by the way, Mark Zuckerberg was seen in Wuhan in November 2019 carrying a locked metal briefcase, then a week later he bought a shitload of stock in Pfizer. I kid you not.

What, you don’t believe that?
Well prove I’m wrong!
Go on, prove it!
You can’t, hey?
See – I’m right!

I watch the news ~

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I watch the news.
I not only watch the news, I listen to the news.
And I read news from a variety of sources.

I live in a small country town outside of Sydney yet each day I read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the BBC World service (off their app), the Sydney Morning Herald, and Wired magazine. I get emailed newsletters from them all too.

In the morning while I have my shower I listen to the breakfast show on Radio National on the ABC, or the ABC’s radio current affairs show AM. Of an evening I watch the first half of SBS news. It gives me a global perspective. 

I don’t watch Fox news, commercial television news, I don’t read any Murdoch newspapers. And I don’t get my news from social media, or from Google.

Now, you might say that I live in a left wing echo chamber and you might be right. So what? I believe I’m capable of discerning between what’s news and what’s commentary.

I was trained as a journalist.

I studied journalism at university before getting a cadetship at the ABC. I completed my three year cadetship and then joined the ABC’s flagship current affairs show This Day Tonight. For a brief period I worked on Four Corners before moving from current affairs to documentaries. After twelve years working as a journalist and documentarian I moved into independent filmmaking.

Why am I telling you this?

Because the world is going through a time of unparalleled change, and I believe it’s critically important that I keep up with things, to know what’s going on and why, so that I can make informed decisions that affect not only me but my loved ones, my country and the world.

Also, how can I ever hope to contribute creatively if I don’t have any social or political context?

I don’t understand people who say they don’t watch the news.

There’s a lot of so-called new-age people who say that. They think this somehow protects them from all the negative energy that they perceive to be out there.

What a load of crap.

It’s like saying you’re going to cross the road with your eyes shut because you don’t want to get hit by a car.

Burying your head in the sand isn’t going to change things. What’s going to change things is action based on informed choice. 

There’s many who say they don’t believe the mainstream media. They talk about fake news. I’ve worked as a journalist and what I know is this – good journalists are driven by a strong desire to expose contradiction and hypocrisy. That’s what gets them out of bed each day.

The media conglomerates might have their agendas, such as the Murdoch empire, but if you are selective in what news you ingest, you can remain factually informed.

History is happening around us every day, and it’s being chronicled by the news. I saw floods in subways in New York the other night. It looked straight out of a disaster movie. This is climate change in action.

Like all the bushfires.
Like the destruction of the magnificent Barrier Reef.

I saw the storming of the Capital in Washington, live on TV as it was happening. Who would ever have thought that was possible?

America got out of the Vietnam war because of the TV coverage. The visual news reporting, and the reporting of the My Lai massacre were instrumental in creating a groundswell movement stateside that forced political change.

I read somewhere recently that democracy is under threat because it requires diligence and effort to maintain democratic ideals, and a lot of people aren’t prepared to put in the effort.

If they watched the news maybe they would…

Would you regard your life a success?

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I had a birthday the other day, and as most of you know, I’m no spring chicken. But I started to wonder – has my life been a success?

Now, I must admit I don’t feel entirely comfortable using the past tense here because I’ve still got some gas left in the tank – I hope!

But it made me think – what constitutes success in a life?

If someone has an expensive car and a luxurious house by the harbour, would you say that person is a success?

You probably would, right?

What if they have a massive stock or property portfolio, or a beautiful holiday home by the sea, or a swanky mountain retreat – would you say that person is a success?

Again, you probably would.

Supposing that same person has several failed marriages. And a brood of children that hate his or her guts. And supposing that person got their wealth through greed and deceit. Would you still regard that person a success?

I wouldn’t.
Material wealth and possessions aren’t, in my view, an indicator of success.

In the work I do, as a filmmaker and author, success can be marked by awards. But I know plenty of people who have done great work that’s had a major impact on culture and they’ve never won an award.

Good critical reviews for a creative work could be seen to be a marker of success – but again history shows us that what we regard as masterpieces now were often dismissed or even vilified at the time when these works were first released and critiqued.

In the creative industries, if you make a lot of money you’re regarded as being a success.

But what you make, or do, could be ugly and hurtful.

If someone for instance became wealthy by making pornography, would you regard that person a success? Or if they created works that were exploitative or incited hatred or violence – is that a successful life?

For me, morals and ethics hold way more sway than material displays of success.

Did Gandhi achieve success in life?
You bet he did.
Did Mother Teresa achieve success in life?
Damn right she did.
They both had bugger all in terms of possessions.
But the impact they made on humanity was immeasurable.

We all can’t be Gandhis or Mother Teresas,
but in some small way we can put a dent in the Universe,
As Steve Jobs put it.
We were born to create.
That’s what our purpose is, I believe.
And every day we create, all of us, in one way or another.
What we create, and how we do it, is what defines us.

I was on a podcast recently hosted by an entrepreneur,
and he asked me:
What would you say has been your greatest success?

My family, I told this podcaster.

That flummoxed him.
He didn’t expected me to say that.
But I believe it absolutely.
Everything else is secondary to that.

For me, success in life is waking up each morning,
being able to do what I love doing.

That to me is a successful life.

I’m back, baby! Yeah!!

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Something woke me this morning at 3:13am. I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I checked my FitBit app – I’d had 3hrs 40 mins sleep. Not enough, even for me. So I checked my emails, of course, as if that was going to put me back to sleep. And I saw that there was an email from WordPress telling me that my stats for this website were booming.

That’s odd, I thought, because anyone reading this blog will know that I have been slack in posting regularly. Slack is too kind a word. I’ve been negligent.

So out of interest, I checked on what it was that was causing my stats to boom. I haven’t posted for quite a long time – since my 14day fast I think – so it wasn’t like I’d just put up a post recently and it had taken off.

I discovered that most of the activity was for the home page, and for my archives. And I discovered something else too – that in all the posts that I’ve published here since walking my first Camino in 2013, there are two posts in particular that keep getting viewed year after year. They are:

Today I woke at 4:44am

Sex on the Camino

These are the two posts that, for some reason, people keep coming back to – and I mean like I’ll get multiple views of these daily, and I mean daily.

So anyway, I lay in bed thinking that I really should get back to writing blogs more regularly, so what I’ve decided to do is this: post twice a week from now on – mid week and weekends.

Some posts might be short, some longer. But what I’ll do is write about all sorts of stuff – stream of consciousness stuff, riffs on what I’m working on, what I’m doing in my home and personal life (to a point!), what I’m reading, what I’m watching, what’s important to me.

I’ll try and avoid any reference to saints setting dwarfs on fire.
(private joke for those who have followed me from way back!)

Anyway, it sounds pretty boring, right?
But I’ll try and make it interesting through my writing.
And by nature of my, at times, off-kilter view of the world.
Oh, and I’ll post an interesting photo with each blog too.

So, dear followers, I’m back, baby!! Yeah!!
Hang on tight ‘cos it’s going to be a bumpy ride!