Day two of a healthy lifestyle and an old picture

Well it's been day 2 of a healthier life style, which has consisted of not eating as much as I would normally and then going to the supermarket to by lots of salad stuff.  The salad isn't going to last long because I've already eaten half of it.  It takes a lot of salad to feel full up, and it takes a long time of preparation.  Especially if you include the shopping for it in the first place.  Overall though, it's not been too bad.  Lunch consisted of a sandwich and a cup of coffee.  Prior to this breakfast consisted of one piece of toast.  I think I have got to learn to eat slower.  To savour food, because there's not much of it when you're dieting.  Exercise has not been on today's agenda.  Perhaps it's a matter of getting up early in the morning and taking a quick walk or run before delightful breakfast.  I could eat some more salad with my toast tomorrow, maybe it'll make all the difference.  If I'm exercising tomorrow then I also have to go to bed early to get up early.  Healthy life is hard work, it will be killing me.

It is surprising how deprivation of a big lunch time meal can effect the mind.  For after finishing work I nearly didn't go to the supermarket.  I saw the chip shop in the square and a thought flashed in my mind.  A temptational thought, to go and buy a portion and a pie.  I resisted, quickly turning and walking off in another direction.  I could consider making my own sandwiches tomorrow.  Thing is the carbs again.  It's the bread.  It makes me wonder what working class people used to do when there was not such a large supply of carbs.  Unless of course they were the main food source.  But in those olden days people were not fat, there was not a plentiful supply of food.  Food was a scarce thing, and even eating one meal a day considered good.  Hadn't they died of all kinds of diseases those people of them olden days would of lived a lot long than the fat people of today do.

I have a post card of a young girl from the 19th century.  I saw the original photograph at the National Portrait Gallery in London and just fell in love with it.  It's been pinned to a wall for years.  Here she is on the right.  The photo would of been taken with a plate camera. It is of Adelaide Passingham by Evelyn Myers and is a sepia platinotype.  The quality of these old black and white pictures is unbelievable.  Nothing colour wise can ever match up to them.  Not even today.  There are two reasons, firstly the range of tones in the print are richer as platinum is used rather than silver, the second is biological.  Light receptor cells in the human eye are outnumbered phenomenally by those which see black and white.  It's thought platinum pictures of this type can last thousands of years.  So Adelaide will be around a lot longer than most of us.  These pictures show how colour is really no more than a second thought no matter the general belief. This was taken in 1889, so Adelaidie, it would of been nice had the photographer asked Adelaide to open her eyes, head tilted and glance toward the camera. The down caste head posture although enticing gives Adelaide a simultaneous sultry and downtrodden appearance.  I wonder if her hair was full of mites, it's a tangled mess and no self respecting woman nowadays would allow her hair to look like this. Adelaide, is relatively clean looking but at this turn of the century who can say.  Historically, working class people washing and their personal hygiene may have been in doubt. There will be few pictures of this type ever done again.  Simply because of the cost.  Platinum was cheap when the Platinotype Company first produced the paper, but over a period of twenty odd years, the price increased 52 times.  So it was abandoned and other cheaper chemical methods used such as the palladiotype.  Whatever, this picture is certainly going to be around for a long time.

I do like the photo, even by today's standards it his a high quality image.  I also bet Adelaide never got fat as obesity was a rarity in them olden days.