Welcome back to our gardening and health blog series where we’ve been taking you on a personal journey as we explore the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening for ourselves.

Today, Abi Begho is back and this time she’s sharing her experience of growing tomatoes. She discusses the ups and downs, the need for patience and the joy of harvesting your first fruits.

We absolutely love tomatoes in my house. We eat them almost every day – in salads, we make Nigerian stew with them, we use them in omelettes, stir fries, sandwiches and much more. You name the dish and we’ll put a tomato in it!

When it came to deciding what to grow in our vegetable garden, tomatoes were first on our list and the first thing we tried.

When I started looking into tomatoes, I must be honest, I soon realised I really didn’t know a thing about them even though I eat them every day.

I was shocked at the variety of tomatoes out there, I was just aware of cherry, plum and what I call “normal” tomatoes, but this is just the tip of the ice berg. I was shocked to learn that there are over 700 varieties of tomatoes, they come in quite a few colours, not just red – yellow, orange, pink,  purple and black, and they have some very interesting names  – Beefsteak, Big Boy, Pink Brandywine, Pink Girl, Lemon Boy, Golden Jubliee and  Better Boy.

Deciding what variety to grow

When it came to deciding which tomato variety to grow, because there were so many to choose from, I decided the best thing to do would be to extract the seeds from a local variety that we buy in our super market all the time. This means that I have no idea what variety it is (as it’s not listed on the package), but I knew it tasted nice and as it’s grown locally then that suggested to me that it would grow well in our garden (I hoped!).

Although this is how I selected which tomato variety to grow, the advice from experts is to base your decision on more scientific factors – how disease resistant a variety is, how it grows (is it determinate or indeterminate) and the time it takes to mature.

From Seed to Fruit

Once I had decided on what tomatoes to grow, then it was planting time.

In my last blog I explained that I simply sliced up a tomato making sure each of the slices had seeds in them, buried the slices in soil and watered them and in less than a week my seeds had germinated and I had about ten seedlings growing happily in my container. I was so excited and just couldn’t wait to see the seedlings develop.

I kept an eye on the seedlings and watered them regularly and one week later their true leaves (second set of leaves) had developed, a sign that the seedlings were developing well. At this point I pretty much left them alone, under a tree that got a lot of sunlight (but protected them from the intense afternoon sun here in St Kitts) and watered them regularly.

When they had outgrown the container, I put some of the young tomato plants in a large pot and the others I planted into my newly created vegetable bed. Then came the test of patience.  One thing gardening teaches you is patience.  Every morning I would go out into the garden and will them to grow, I was so excited every time I saw them develop just a little bit more, it was fascinating.

Two months after planting my tomato seeds I noticed flower buds developing (the very first sign that tomatoes are coming soon) and a few days after that a lovely yellow tomato flower had developed. I thought: ‘yes!  I’ll have tomatoes in a couple of weeks.’ What did I say about patience?  There was more waiting. It took another 6 weeks to get my first ripe tomato and as I type I have 51 green tomatoes growing nicely and waiting to ripen ( ah-mazing!)

Check out the video below to see me picking my second ripe tomato.

Another important thing to mention is that I had to create a support system for my tomato plants. Due to the weight of tomatoes most plants need some form of support to prevent the fruit from weighing them down. There are many options out there and I chose to create a tomato trellis (see picture on the right), I created this using stakes and string. As the plants grew I would tie the main stem loosely to the trellis and weave the leaves horizontally along the string. This, so far (it is still early days), has given the plants some support and training them to grow along the trellis, as well as pruning the plants, has kept them neat and contained.

Challenges

The four main challenges I have encountered thus far are:

Insects – Living in the Caribbean means there are a lot of bugs and insects to contend with and they all seem to love tomatoes as much as I do!  To date, they haven’t caused any major problems, but I did lose two tomatoes to caterpillars who ate them for lunch one day.  I was so sad, it felt like all my hard work had gone to waste, at least it was only two tomatoes . I’ve been keeping an eye out for tomato-eating insects and have flicked a few caterpillars off the plants before they made a meal of the tomatoes.

Blossom End Rot – I woke up one morning shocked to see two of my tomatoes with dark patches on their bottoms, like they were rotting. I promptly discarded them hoping that they wouldn’t affect the tomatoes next to them.  Then, a few days later, the same thing happened to two more tomatoes on the same plant but in a different location. I was dejected, first insects now some horrible looking disease. After a Google search I learnt that is was blossom end rot and not as bad as it looked.

Blossom end rot occurs due to a calcium deficiency where the plant, for various reasons, is unable to absorb enough calcium for its development. The advice from Gardening Know How is not to worry, it usually clears up on its own, just pick off the affected tomatoes and discard them and make sure the plants get adequate water (not too much though). So, for the moment I am going to just wait it out and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

Blossom drop – Last week I noticed that my new tomato flowers weren’t looking healthy at all. They seem drier than the previous set which really thrived and developed into 51 healthy tomatoes. These new tomato flowers are shrivelling up and some have already fallen off the plant without developing into fruit (Nooooo!). I couldn’t believe it. I had so many new flowers which I had hoped would form tomatoes, but alas, it was not meant to be. I hope the next set do better.

After doing some research, I found that blossom drop is common and looking at all the possible causes I have narrowed it down to two which I think could be the culprit:

• Lack of water – we’ve had some short sharp showers and so I haven’t been watering the plants as regularly as I used to. Reflecting on this I don’t think the showers were providing enough water for my plants as the soil has been pretty dry so I am going to start watering every other day as before
• Too many blossoms and fruit  – up until now my plants have been developing really well and I do currently have 51 tomatoes spread across 9 plants and a lot of flowers developing (and dying!). According to The Spruce having all these fruit and flowers developing at the same time requires a lot of energy and they will all be competing for a limited amount of energy and food, and only the strong will survive. They state that once the majority of tomatoes have been harvested the problem will resolve, so again, I just have to wait it out.

Playing the waiting game – In this blog, I have mentioned patience and waiting several times and that has been one of my biggest challenges: waiting for something significant to happen. In the whole scheme of things it hasn’t been that long (3 months) to get my first ripe tomato, but at times it has felt like a life-time. Each step does take a while – it took two months from seed to the first sign of a blossom, then from flower to pea-sized tomato took a week, that got me excited, but then it took over a month for that pea-sized tomato to develop into a fully ripened red tomato, but it was so worth the wait – it was delicious!

Why grow tomatoes?

Tomatoes are a great fruit to grow because they are packed with nutrients. They are known for their fairly high lycopene content which has been linked to a reduction in our risk of developing heart disease and cancer. Tomatoes are also rich in vitamin C, folate, vitamin K and fibre, and they contain iron, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin E.

All these nutrients and minerals are excellent for your overall health and by growing tomatoes in your garden you’ll get an ample supply so you’ll get a good dose of nutrients.

Happy gardening!

Well….that was a fairly long blog post (sorry!), but I hope that it gave you an idea of what it’s like to grow tomatoes and some of the challenges you may encounter along the way. Despite the challenges, it has been a lot of fun and very rewarding. I am looking forwarding to harvesting more tomatoes, so far I have only harvested two so there are many more to come. I’ll keep you all updated.

In my next blog I will move on to my okras – the stars of the show!

See you next time and happy gardening!

Some references and more information

1. Identifying Tomatoes with Blossom End Rot
2. How to prevent blossom end rot
3. What kind of tomatoes should I grow
4. Controlling Blossom Drop 

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If you missed our previous blogs you can read them using the links below

1. Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: An Introduction
2. Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: How I Got Started

Today’s blog is the second in our gardening and health blog series. We hear from Abi Begho who discusses what motivated her to set up her backyard vegetable garden and how she got started.

I’ve never been a huge fan of gardening, in fact gardening never really entered into my thoughts until recently. There has been a lot of change in my life with my husband and I moving from the UK to the Caribbean. We moved for many reasons with the main reasons being to improve our quality of life, escape the city where everything is so fast-paced and to get back to what is really important  – fulfilling our purpose in life and having a positive impact on the world around us.

As we planned our move the idea of being sustainable and self-sufficient appealed to us – we’re going to have the space so why not try growing all our fruits and vegetables? I liked the idea of it, but in my mind I thought: this is going to be a chore and a lot of work, and I really don’t know where to start.

Getting Started

Once we moved I turned to my trusty friend, YouTube, and started exploring how to start a vegetable garden and there was so much useful advice.

I focused on fruits and vegetables that we eat already  (tomatoes, okras, peppers, onions, broccoli etc.) and read up on how to grow these from seeds, but also consulted with my brother-in-law who is working on his PhD in agricultural economics.

My research was really eye-opening and highlighted just how much I didn’t know about the food we eat and where it comes from – who knew that okra actually starts its life as a beautiful flower and this flower turns into an okra pod ? Amazing!

Armed with videos, information and lots of advice, I began. My first project was tomatoes. I literally just sliced up a tomato, making sure each of the slices had seeds in them and buried the slices in soil – a very simple tip I picked up from YouTube. I have to admit I was extremely skeptical – can I really grow tomato plants from these slices buried in a bit of soil? Well, to my surprise, less than a week later the seeds in the slices had germinated and I had the cutest little tomato seedlings growing happily in my container. That was towards the end of October and as I type I have nine tomato plants that are over a foot tall with 23 little green tomatoes  developing and two huge green tomatoes which look  like they’re ready to turn red any day now –  great results! I am so proud and feel a huge sense of accomplishment that I have made such significant progress in growing my tomato plants from seeds.

So far, I have to say, I absolutely LOVE gardening. I have found it to be extremely relaxing, I wake up early every morning and spend some quiet time in the garden with my vegetables (that sounds a bit creepy, I know!).  My surroundings are beautiful, the weather is great and the plants look like they develop a bit more every day, which I find really fascinating. It’s nice starting the day with the peace and tranquillity of engaging with nature and I now truly appreciate the beauty of God’s creation.

Oh, and let’s not  forget that gardening is actually hard work so I do get some serious exercise, particularly when I am creating the vegetable beds –  I have to do a lot of digging, weeding and  raking . You won’t believe how much weight I’ve lost since I started gardening, I can hardly believe it myself.

In my next blog…

My gardening journey has just started and in my next few blog posts I’ll share my experience until I hopefully get some produce (how exciting!). I’ll also share the health benefits of what I am growing, what I have learnt and the dishes I make from the vegetables I have grown – it may just inspire you to grow your own fruits and vegetables too.

Next time I’ll be discussing my lovely tomatoes and giving you an update on their growth.

See you in the next blog and happy gardening!

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If you missed the first blog post in this series, you can read it here to find out more about the health benefits of gardening – there are many!

Welcome to this blog series on gardening and our health and well-being. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be taking you on a personal journey as we explore the health and well-being benefits of gardening for ourselves. We’ll tell you how we started, show you our garden, what we’re growing and share some of what we’ve learnt along the way. Today we start off with a quick introduction. Enjoy!

When many of us think of gardening, we think of it as hard manual labour and a chore. We wonder why anyone would spend a weekend in the garden when they could be doing something else. Well, research (and personal experience) has shown that gardening is not only fun but can play an important role in improving our physical and mental health. The benefits are so effective that a whole industry of therapeutic horticulture exists and has been in existence, in some form or another, since the early 19^th century.

Thrive, a charity that was founded 35 years ago, uses gardening to bring about positive changes in the lives of people with a disability, who are experiencing ill-health, are isolated, disadvantaged or vulnerable. They describe the health benefits of gardening as:

• Better physical health through exercise and muscle strengthening
• Improved mental health through a sense of purpose,  achieving a sense of peace and tranquillity, restoring attention and stress alleviation
• The development of life skills

Gardening and Physical Health

Gardening is no joke! It can be really hard work. Mowing the lawn, digging, weeding and raking can leave you feeling physically exhausted. This is a really good thing as it means you’re getting some serious exercise.

 A research study published in 2014 showed that digging and raking equated to high-intensity exercise whilst other activities such as weeding, sowing seeds, harvesting, watering and planting transplants were found to be equivalent to moderate-intensity exercise. This means that spending time working on your garden every day could enable you to achieve the government’s recommended amount of physical activity (150 minutes a week), and because of the variety of tasks performed in the garden you’ll be getting both a cardiovascular and muscle strengthening workout.

Regular gardening has an impact on our physical health as the exercise we achieve from it can improve the health of our heart, help with weight loss and reduce our risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, fibroids and a number of other health conditions.

The Mental Health Benefits

Gardening makes you feel good.  The excitement of seeing your seeds sprout, the peace and tranquillity of having some quiet time in your garden, the accomplishment you feel when you harvest your first-fruits and gaining a new-found appreciation for nature all contribute to improving your emotions and state of mind. This is backed up by research too.

In 2013, researchers published a review of ten high-quality studies on garden-based mental health interventions. These studies all explored the benefits of gardening on people with mental health difficulties. All of them showed an improvement in the symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as a range of benefits including emotional, social, vocational, physical and spiritual.

Gardening and a Healthy Diet

Many people who delve into the world of gardening explore growing their own fruits and vegetables.  Growing your own produce is a fun and rewarding way of introducing more fruits and vegetables into your diet;  it can be a way to introduce a lot of these into your diet as one, say, tomato plant can provide an abundance of tomatoes, meaning your diet can be more plant-based. This type of diet has a number of health benefits including reducing the risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

In addition to this, as you’ll be growing these yourselves you can avoid some of the harmful pesticides that are commonly used in commercially grown fruits and vegetables, avoid genetically modified products and you’ll get very fresh fruit and veg which many have said are tastier than store-bought products.

The Development of Life Skills

To grow anything requires you to develop and utilise a number of skills. These include problem-solving (coming up with solutions when your plants don’t look right), patience, discipline, time-management, research (understanding the plant you’re growing), perseverance and a basic understanding of plant biology. Gaining these skills improves confidence and there is the added benefit that some of these skills are transferable to other areas of your life. Being empowered with these skills improves a person’s overall well-being, improving their outlook on life and leading to significant personal development.

Conclusion

Whilst at first glance gardening may not seem that inspiring when you explore it further you can see the huge benefits it can have on your well-being. So… if you’re looking for a  fun, yet practical way to get fit, active and healthy why not try a bit of gardening. We’re trying it and we love it!

See you next time and happy gardening!

Let us know your thoughts on gardening for health benefits in the comments section below.

The Lake Foundation aims to improve the health and well-being of the black community and to achieve this general aim a core part of our work is to get the black community more active.

Exercise can be very intimidating for many people and thus we sought to explore various options on how we could get people active in a way that could be incorporated into everyday life and would ultimately be fun.

Cycling is an interesting option as it is very practical and can be introduced into a person’s life as a method of transport (commuting to work), as a leisure activity (exploring the local area) and as a form of structured exercise.

We began our work by teaming up with the Cycling Instructor in 2014 to run a short-term initiative of bike-ability sessions aimed at the black community to teach basic cycling techniques and improve confidence. We worked with the Cycling Instructor for two summers and this proved very popular with us having to extend the sessions beyond their initial four-week period. With this in mind, we decided to build on the popularity of these sessions and we ran a cycling club, with funding from Sport England, from February 2016 to April 2017.

The need for our project

5.3% of the UK’s black population has type two diabetes (versus 1.7% of the white population), 33% suffer from high blood pressure, (compared to 16% of white adults), black African women have been found to have the highest prevalence of obesity, the black community is twice as likely to suffer from a stroke, is twice as likely to develop prostate cancer, is 2-3 times more likely to develop fibroids and as a result of their increased risk of diabetes are at increased risk of developing heart disease. One of the key lifestyle factors that tie these conditions together is physical activity.

Research has shown that the risk of developing these conditions can be reduced significantly by being more physically active, but unfortunately, studies have shown that over half of people from black and minority ethnic  (BME) groups do not take part in sports nor do they do any physical activity.

By increasing the number of BME people taking part in a sporting activity we can begin to address some of the health challenges that plague the black community, but we need to create better opportunities for the black community to take part in sports. To successfully achieve this we need to present the community with fun, engaging, practical and easily accessible sporting activities; cycling can do this.

According to TFL “BME groups, women, people from more deprived neighbourhoods, those with disabilities and older people are typically under-represented in cycling” and “the typical London cyclist is white, under 40 and male with a medium to high household income”. This means that there is a huge inequality in cycling but this creates a huge opportunity to introduce BME communities to cycling.

Through the bike-ability courses, we were able to show that if cycling is presented to members of the BME community without any barriers (bikes and helmets provided) they will happily take up this activity and easily meet the government’s recommended amount of physical activity.

To ensure that our BME community kept cycling beyond the short bike-ability sessions we needed a sustainable long-term opportunity for them to cycle and our cycling club provided this.

Overview of the Cycling Club Project

Aims and Objectives

The aims of our cycling club project were to:

• Increase the number of people from a BME background who cycle regularly
• Improve attendees’ confidence in cycling
• Provide opportunities for members to develop in cycling
• Introduce the BME community to a fun and easy way to achieve the recommended amount of physical activity

We achieved the above by:

• Running two-hour cycling sessions every 2^nd and 4^th Saturday of the month
• Providing direction from experienced instructors and encouraging  members to take part in national and local cycling events
• Making each session engaging and encouraging members to develop good friendships within the group. Each cycling session involved fun routes that allowed members to discover the beauty of their local area but also challenged members. We had socials to encourage relationships to be built that centred around cycling
• Ensuring that each session was definitely two hours so that members participated in a significant amount of physical activity.

Outcomes

Our project progressed well, the targeted number of participants for our project was 18 and we had 23 participants join our club over the 14-month period.

Outcome 1: Improved confidence in cycling

We hired trained experienced instructors from the organisation Cycling Instructor to lead sessions and provide participants with training on cycling techniques. This included cycling in traffic, hand signals, making sure bikes are road-worthy, cycling off-road and on-road and cycling uphill. This meant that members were given a good foundation when it comes to proper cycling technique and this has helped improve their confidence.  Members completed feedback forms and before joining the club 10% felt not confident at all, 30% felt a little confident, 20% felt confident and 20% felt very confident with cycling. A year after joining our club only 9% of members felt a little confident whilst 45% of members felt confident and 36% felt very confident,  with one member saying:

“I’m not a regular cyclist but it [the club] gives me confidence, particularly, on the roads”

Outcome 2: Provided opportunities for members to develop in cycling

Having sessions with experienced instructors helped develop the cycling skills of our club members and we also challenged members through extended 4-hour rides to Chislehurst Caves and the Olympic Stadium, and also several uphill routes. Additionally, we encouraged members to take part in local and national cycling events such as the Croydon Interfaith Cycle Ride, the Crystal Palace Road to Rio Ride and others. One member of our group took part in the London to Brighton ride, which was the first time she had participated in such an event, she said:

“I barely could cycle very far but after a few months of cycling with the club I was able to cycle 20-23 miles” – Sam, Cycling Club Member

We asked members how much they feel their cycling technique has improved since joining the club and 45% said their technique had improved a lot, 36% said their technique improved somewhat, 9% said it improved a little and 9% said they didn’t know.

Outcome 3:  Introduced the BME community to cycling

The majority of people that attended our cycling club were from a BME background – 20 out of 23 were from a BME background, some of whom didn’t cycle regularly before joining our group. Before joining the group 18% had never cycled, 18% cycled once or twice a year, 27% cycled monthly, 27% cycled weekly and 9% cycled more than 5 days in a week. Through our club we have introduced cycling to some (18%) and the club ensured that the others engaged more regularly in cycling.

Some keys to success

Our project worked well due to the excellent freelance cycling instructors we hired who were very experienced and made each session very enjoyable. They found interesting routes each time, and the sessions were informative with members learning about cycling techniques, so it was a good balance of fun, exercise and instruction.

Additionally, we recruited a cycling coordinator who was very warm, friendly and encouraging this provided a really good atmosphere at each session. She ensured everything ran smoothly, being the point of contact for members and instructors and she worked well with the instructors to plan each route. She also organised socials for members which were well-attended and this gave members the opportunity to get to know each other. Importantly our coordinator was a member of the BME community and a keen cyclist.

Conclusion

Similar to the short bike-ability courses we have been able to show that if cycling is presented to members of the BME community without any barriers (bikes and helmets provided) they will happily take up this activity and easily meet the government’s recommended amount of physical activity.

One important point to note is that the social aspect of the club was very important. We found that many club members didn’t cycle in-between sessions nor did they cycle when sessions were cancelled. When we probed further we found that members liked cycling as a group activity and valued the time spent with others. It would appear that our group of BME cyclists looked at cycling as more of a leisure activity rather than a method of transport or structured exercise. This suggests that to encourage more people from a BME background to cycle, projects that promote cycling for leisure rather than for commuting and exercise are more likely to appeal to the BME community; and these projects would need to be group activities that promote social interaction.

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We are very grateful to Sport England for funding this project and Cycling Instructor for their advice and support.

In this week’s blog our guest blogger, freelance journalist, Stacey Mensah, asks the question: ‘Are you getting enough exercise?’ and explores the barriers to exercise.

A poll has estimated that Britons spend twice as long on the toilet every week as they do exercising. With adults clocking up an average of three hours and nine minutes on their loos every week. This is serious business! Now to some this isn’t really going to mean anything and others frankly would not want to know. However, the reason why we’re making this comparison is to show the stark differences between the two activities and why we should be doing one of them for a lot longer. With the NHS recommending we perform 150 minutes’ worth of exercise each week, it makes me wonder what could be the possible barriers towards reaching this goal and if it in fact is enough.

Having lived in a cosmopolitan city for the majority of my years I can say with ease that exercising for 30 minutes a day is more than probable. And just remember that this is coming from a person who would choose the escalator over the stairs every single time! When the NHS is talking about moderate exercise this includes brisk walking – can I get a hallelujah! That sprint to catch the train, the light jog to the meeting and even the walk to pub for after work drinks’ count. But here is the dose of reality – the office treats, the regular intake of alcohol and your hate for vegetables isn’t doing you any favours. For those of us that like to indulge in the naughtier items on the menu we should also be willing to increase our doses of daily exercise.

But let’s be real that doesn’t always happen! UKactive has found that one of the biggest barriers to exercise were busy working lives which was followed by family commitments. At certain phases in my life I have found myself several days into my week without having worked out or done any significant bouts of exercise. When the delivery driver, waitress or restaurant manager knows me by name and order the I know it’s time to switch a few things up.

According to the organisation, a lack of exercise claims over 30,000 lives each year and costs the UK £20 billion. I know to some working professionals working out in groups or having someone to be accountable to helps them to stick to their goals. A personal trainer, a nutritionist or even just an active Instagram feed bulging with fitness pictures is enough for some. And it seems as though 41%* of 18 to 24-year-olds prefer using social media as a source of motivation, as it encourages them to head down to the gym.

Although there has been much attention in regards to young people and exercise, chief knowledge officer to the NHS, professor Sir Muir Gray offers a sentiment that we all need to be reminded of: “People often think exercise is only for young people, but older adults are the people who stand to gain most from the mental, social and physical benefits of being active”.

How many hours of exercise do you get every week? What challenges do you face? We would love to hear from you…

On 9^th July, we had a great time at the third annual Croydon Inter-Faith Bike Ride organised by  Faiths Together in Croydon. This is the only bike ride of its kind that brings different faiths and cultures together.

This was a well-attended event which attracted a diversity of people – old, young, different ethnicities and of course people from various religious backgrounds.

 We started the ride at Croydon Arena where about 20 of us set off for the Box Park in central Croydon where we were met by 15 more riders, and were treated to a free drink and snack (yay!).

Whilst at the Box Park we were welcomed by the Leader of the Council, Tony Newman, and Councillor Hamida Ali who spoke about the importance of this event in bringing people together to create a more positive atmosphere to combat some of the negative events of the past few months.

After our little break at the Box Park we cycled to the Croydon Gurdwara where we received a very friendly welcome and were invited inside for refreshments and a short interesting talk about the Sikh faith. We then carried on with our ride cycling through Addiscombe and made our next stop at the Croydon Synagogue. Here we were once again warmly welcomed with refreshments and then were delighted to hear from the synagogue’s rabbi who told us about the history of the Jewish community in Croydon, provided an overview of the Jewish faith and took questions.

The ride ended with the group making their way from the synagogue to Park Hill for a picnic. Sadly we missed the picnic, but have since heard a great time was had by all who attended with more people joining the group including the Mayor of Croydon.

We really enjoyed the interfaith bike ride. This was a perfect opportunity for the community to get active, come together and learn about each other’s faith and culture. We’d like to say a big thank you to Faiths Together in Croydon and Croydon Council for organising this event. We’d also like to say a big thank you to the Croydon Gurdwara and Croydon Synagogue for their warm welcome.

Look out for next year’s event on the Faiths Together in Croydon’s website. We may see you next time!

On Wednesday 10th May, we attended the second annual Elevate conference, an event that aimed to tackle the issue of inactivity in the UK and provide a forum for cross-sector debate on physical activity, health and wellbeing.

This conference included seminars, a tech lab, a stage area showcasing interesting projects and products, and there was also an exhibition area.

The seminar programme was divided into four streams: Physical Activity for Health and Wellbeing; Inclusivity – Creating an Active Nation;  Future Performance; and The Business of Physical Activity.

Inclusivity

We attended the sessions in the inclusivity stream which started with a keynote debate ‘Tackling Inactivity: What are the priorities?  On the panel of this debate was: Steve Gray, the Chief Executive of Nuffield Health, Steven Ward, Executive Director of UK Active, Professor Robert Copeland, from Sheffield Hallam University and Paul Tuohy, Chief Executive of Cycling UK.

This was a very interesting discussion with the panellists giving their view on where we need to focus our attention if we are to ensure that exercise is more inclusive.

Steve Gray from Nuffield Health  provided some good background stating that  1 in 3 people in the UK are inactive, 1 out of every  10 deaths  in the UK is linked to an inactive lifestyle and inactivity costs the NHS £1Billion. He also explained that we have more people living in urban areas and most people are very much dependent on technology which has led to a more sedentary lifestyle.

He explained that there is no single solution to address this issue but felt that firstly everyone needs to take accountability and that includes the government, businesses and individuals. He also explored the fact that exercise needs to be more accessible practically (made more affordable, easy to fit into a person’s day) and emotionally (everyone needs to feel that they can do it). Finally he also discussed the fact that we need to look at new approaches that are bespoke, suit the individual and are holistic, so they go beyond just the physical.

It was also interesting to hear from Steve Ward from UK Active who explained that their work focuses on communicating the message that it doesn’t matter how long you move for just as long as you move. This is a simple message that makes exercise less daunting.

One of their main priorities is getting more children and young people active as we currently have the most inactive children compared to  previous  generations.

One area they are working on is making sure that children keep active during the summer holidays. He explained that during term time children tend to be very active but once they go on holiday all physical activity ceases.

Another focus area for them is targeting workplaces and ensuring that businesses have a health and wellbeing offer for their staff.

Paul Tuohy also provided some useful insight explaining that 90% of people in the UK own a bike but only 2% of people commute to work or school regularly. The challenge is how to get people from good intentions to action. He also explained that exercise needs to be made simple and people need to get away from the artificial idea that to be fit they need to be a member of the gym. With regards to cycling, he felt that there was a need to normalise cycling rather than feeding the idea that it is an elite sport. People need to see cycling as fun and something they can do everyday.

Engaging with the  least active

We also really found the seminar session on addressing the least active very interesting. This focused on projects that have explored the motivations, attitudes and lifestyles of the most inactive people.

We first heard from Barry Horn from the English Federation of Disability Sport. He spoke about their project Get Out Get Active which is a sport and active recreation project for people with a disability. He explained the need for the project – people with a disability are the single most inactive people in the nation. He stated that their project looked at reaching inactive groups through outreach, engagement and effective marketing and a major priority for them was ensuring sustainability – making disabled people active for life.

As part of their project they explored what disabled people wanted from an exercise program and 64% wanted to take part in physical activity and sport with non-disabled people, they didn’t want to be excluded.

They have also developed some key principles for getting people active – drive awareness, engage the audience and offer support and reassurance.

In this session we also heard from Age UK about how they are getting the elderly more active and the Women’s Sport Trust on the work they’re doing with girls and women.  We were particularly interested in the presentation by Anun King from Sporting Equals about exercise and ethnicity.  He showed data that looked a physical activity and participation in different ethnic groups and this suggested that black and Asian women were the least active.  He explained that some of the barriers to participation were cultural, attitudes to exercise,  socio-economic and organisational.  To address this Sporting Equals have implemented a number of project including a faith centre model. This focused on people from an Asian background. Anun explained there were a number of benefits of working with faith based organisations, these include their large footfall and they have indoor and outdoor facilities. He discussed other projects which included their cultural events model, community sport zones and ethnic minority media work.

Great day out

This was a really busy day that we thoroughly enjoyed it. We attended so many presentations but just wanted to highlight a few interesting ones in this blog. Other projects that you may find interesting that we learnt about at Elevate were:

• Working with disadvantage communities to remove barriers to participation and get children and young people active
• WHO HEAT Tool
• Tackling inequalities and behaviour change in Birmingham

You can find out more about Elevate on their website and look out for the next event in May 2018.

With more than 20 million people in the UK reported to be physically inactive and thus not getting enough exercise, there is a need to find fun innovative ways to get people moving. With that in mind, last month we attended the Fitness Blastoff BASH, an event that we were really excited about as we loved the idea of a fitness party.

The Fitness Blastoff is an urban fitness dance party experience for men and women based in the UK. They work with a variety of aerobics instructors to create unique, fresh and lively workouts but with a party-like feel to it.

So on the 1^st April, with a sense of excitement, we ventured to their BASH, we arrived late and as we walked through the door of the venue we were met with a huge number of people dancing to music blaring through the speakers as the DJ on the stage created a fantastic party atmosphere. It really did feel like a club, it was dark with a great vibe and some club lights too.  What struck me as I walked around was the diversity in the room (young, old, black, white and all shapes and sizes) and the smiles – everybody was having a good time in their trainers, gym wear and with water bottles in hand.

As we tried to find a bit of space in the hall we suddenly heard the DJ say: “Are you ready for your 5 hour workout!??” Fear then set in as we all looked at each other and thought: “ I don’t think we’ll last 5 hours!”

After a few minutes of throwing our hands in the air and singing along with the rest of the crowd we were introduced to the first instructor, Alicja Blachut, for a 30 minute Jamaican Dancehall session called Mash It Up, this was a fast- paced, fun session where we learnt a routine to Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You. The time flew by and before we knew it, the 30 minutes was over and it was time for a 5 minute water break. This was followed by the sessions below, each with a 5 minute break afterwards:

• Old Skool Hip Hop with Ameila Aramu
• Afrobeats with Kwaku Agyemang of Azonto Fitness
• UK Garage with Karla Richards
• Bashment with Shallahni Rose
• Jungle with Faye Edwards of I.T Academy
• House with Kassidy Chaplin of Shuffle in Shape
• Soca with Andre Chacha of Addicted to Fitness

Believe it or not, we were having so much fun that the 5 hours flew by so quickly and at the end of the event we didn’t want to leave!

It was a very tiring day, but because it was so much fun, we didn’t actually feel it in the same way we have done when we’ve taken part in other fitness events where we’d be counting down the time to the end of the session.

The sessions we enjoyed the most were the Afrobeat, Jungle, Hip Hop and House sessions. The instructors were very engaging and had put a lot of thought into their sessions, making them easy to follow but very energetic.

The event was a massive success for so many reasons. Firstly, the variety of workouts, each session being so different made for an interesting and fun day; Secondly, the DJ. He was very good, he set the tone of the day creating a fun atmosphere, getting the crowd going and in between sessions got us dancing, waving our hands and doing various dances (loved it!); the organisation of the event. The event was really well organised, there was plenty of water on hand and lots of attention paid to the safety of attendees.

We applaud the team behind the Fitness Blastoff for their approach to getting people active. This was a creative and fun way to encourage people to take part in exercise and, from the variety of people in the room, we think it attracted a lot of people that running, cycling and traditional exercise wouldn’t appeal to, giving them an option that suits them. Plus I don’t think you could get a lot of people to exercise for 5 hours and still be smiling at the end of it, like this event did. The fact that people had so much fun meant they were motivated to keep going.

We’re so glad we attended the Fitness Blastoff Bash, we didn’t know what to expect and were pleasantly surprised, we had a wonderful time and most importantly we got a fantastic workout.

The Fitness Blastoff team’s next event, the Afrobeats vs Dancehall Fitness Pop-up Party, is on Saturday 27^th May at 1pm and you can book your tickets here

In this week’s blog our Cycling Club Coordinator, Sheila, discusses some great cycling tips she’s picked up from members of the club. Share some of your cycling hacks with us, we’d love to hear them.

One of the benefits of joining The Lake Foundation Cycling Club has been getting to know other members of the group. We come from all walks of life: from a curtain maker to celebrities, an accountant, to a care worker who has enjoyed a former life as a salsa teacher. The diversity of our group also means that there is a wealth of knowledge and experience between us. Here are a few cycling related gems (cycling hacks) that have emerged from our members.

Apps and websites

One of our cyclists was pretty new to cycling before joining The Lake Foundation Cycling Club. She went from strength to strength and went on to invest in cycling equipment and clothing. She began to ride outside of the club and even took part in the London to Brighton bike ride. It was encouraging to see members of The Lake foundation cycling club support her as she trained for the ride. Whatsapp was a great way to keep up to date with her progress on the day of the ride and cheer her on.

A couple of our cyclists use Strava which allows you to record your sport activities and progress over time. On occasion they’ve then shared the route so we can see how we’re doing as a group.

Our cycling instructors have taken advantage of apps to make their lives easier. One says he’s not a fan of tech. An app like Whatsapp is “far too complicated” for him.  Plot a Route is the exception. He uses it because, “it’s simple and does exactly what it says”. “I can then take a screen-shot and send you the route!” Our second cycling instructor uses Ride with GPS, which also allows you to plot routes in advance but comes with details cue sheets and a wide range of features for the more serious tech savvy rider.

Clothing

A kindly couple in our group took it upon themselves to buy a high-visibility top for one of our riders. Highly visibility clothing has reflective properties or is of a colour that is easily seen from any background. High-visibility clothing can be a life-saver when cycling amongst motor vehicles during day or night.

I’d never had known waterproof socks existed had it not been for one of our more serious riders. It was a cold Saturday morning when we ventured out from Croydon to cycling to Greenwich. I was smug about having layered against the cold weather. I wasn’t prepared, however, for the relentless rain. I re-emerged from the bathroom after a failed attempt to dry my wet socks and was met by laughter of my friend amused by my misery while she enjoyed a hot mug of tea and the comfort of her dry sealskinz socks.

Why not share your cycling hacks with us on Facebook or Twitter #cyclinghacks.

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The Lake Foundation  does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, processes, or services. Therefore, mention of commercial products, processes, or services on the Lake Foundation website cannot be construed as an endorsement or recommendation.

In this week’s blog, our Cycling Coordinator continues her discussion on the benefits of cycling.

It’s 2017 and we kick-started the year as we intend to go on with more cycling adventures in Croydon and beyond. Following our blog about the mental benefits of cycling, we are looking at the physical benefits of cycling.

Gently does it

Cycling is low impact but effective.  Low-impact describes an exercise where at least one foot remains on the ground. So some argue that cycling is no-impact as both feet sit on pedals! When you sit on your cycle your weight rests on a pair of bones in your pelvis instead of your legs. This takes the pressure off your joints. In turn, it reduces the risk of injuries that can affect your movement. In fact, research suggests low impact sports can promote the healing of damaged joints.

Look great on the outside

Cycling is generally a great full-body workout. It works and tones leg muscles, your bottom and upper body. It can assist in weight loss as it increases the body’s ability to burn calories and fat. A lesser-known fact is that exercise promotes the flow of oxygen and nutrients to feed your skin cells. This can make you appear more youthful. It also promotes the creation of collagen, which can prevent those pesky wrinkles.

Be great on the inside

Prevention is better than cure. A low impact activity like cycling can improve and prevent cardiovascular diseases. The British Heart Foundation found that cyclists have half the risk of heart disease compared to those who don’t exercise at all. If pilates or yoga isn’t your thing then cycling is a good way to strengthen your core muscles. This can improve your balance and your coordination. Surprisingly, regular cycling can improve your fitness levels to match someone 10 years younger.

We can’t promise you’ll achieve the stamina of a professional cyclist nor the lean body of a central London courier, but The Lake Foundation Cycling Club is a good start towards your fitness and wellbeing goals for 2017. For more information on how to join email events@thelakefoundation.com

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Sources

http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=fitness_defined_lowimpact_and_highimpact_exercises

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-top-5-benefits-of-cycling

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/the-mediterranean-diet-good-for-your-body-and-mind.html

https://caloriebee.com/workout-routines/Can-Cycling-Help-Tone-Your-Legs-Stomach-and-Butt

http://www.livestrong.com/article/417895-what-parts-of-the-body-does-bicycling-work/

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/30-reasons-to-take-up-cycling-23965/