Diet blogs are usually as interesting as reading about homemade enemas, organic childbirth or wounded baby animals. No one gives a shit about how fat or how thin you are and no one wants to look at pictures of injured fluffy pigeons.

We just don’t care about the biochemical meat paste you’ve been ingesting in your secret pagan moonlit weight-loss rituals and we definitely don’t want to see pictorial evidence. Diets suck. Who wants to read the ugly truth about the tedious daily grind of starving yourself in your bid to fit into your skinny jeans? People really only want to hear about miracle cures and then look at pictures of cats dressed as humans.

This makes me a terrible hypocrite because, for the next few hundred words, I’m going to wow you all with the tale of One pitta one pot. In my defence, I’ve got sod all else to write about right now because I’ve been working really hard and it’s winter. Look away if dietary tips don’t shake your tail feather. At least I’m not posting pictures of dead sparrows.

Not to be confused with Two girls one cup, One pitta one pot is the sexy new diet that has inadvertently changed my life. Okay that’s a total lie. But it has affected me enough to persuade me to write a whole blog about it. It must be really sexy.

9d737fa3-91f7-4f20-8900-095cc8dc1732

Sexy food

 I loathe people that go on about fat loss and I try really hard not to read magazines that encourage us all to agonise about our weight every month. I like people of all shapes and sizes and I really don’t give a shit about the size of your ass.

But the fact is I am much happier when I am not fat. I feel good about myself, my clothes fit better, I look hotter naked and I get laid more. My eternal pursuit of not being fat makes good business sense. Being a short-ass with a stubborn metabolism, I gain weight if I so much as sniff a chip, so staying slim has always been a bit of a challenge. This is why running is so important to me. Not being able to run cocks everything up. Death to the evil IT band and its all-consuming powers.

I’ve been plagued by my recurring leg injury for months now and haven’t been doing very much running. Combine that with riding my new scooter everywhere, having to squeeze all of my flesh into a pathetic 5 foot 3 inch frame, and being in a relatively new relationship which always comes with additional weight, and I was slowly morphing into a little fat girl.

Nine months into my new country life (NINE! That’s nearly a year off soul-geldingly evil fashion magazines, sweaty tube journeys and £8 pints of lager, Rhalelujah) and my transformation into ultra fit country girl was long overdue.

Step in Ultraboy and his obsessive approach to pretty much every area of his life. It comes with the territory; you have to be a bit fanatical to run ultra marathons. He’s recently been recovering from shoulder surgery and has also started to get a little bigger round the middle. I think he’s still sexy as all hell, but I understand the motivation to keep fit.

In his words: “You just can’t do any of the sports I enjoy and be fat.”

Along with running, kayaking and rock climbing are his two favourite pastimes, so he does kind of have a point. So when Ultraboy decided to inadvertently put me on a diet, because basically I eat what he eats, I was forced to stick to the rigidity of his routine.

Ultraboy does nothing by halves. When he runs, it’s a 100 miles across the dessert, when he kayaks, it’s grade 5 waterfalls, and when he diets, it’s lentils and thin air all the way. Fortunately his latest fanatical project has actually worked, so I’ve decided to share it with you all. I haven’t been this happy about my body since discovering the rave scene back in 1995. Oh those halcyon days.

One pitta one pot is pretty straightforward. Basically, every night for dinner we only eat food that fits inside a wholemeal pitta and is cooked using one single pot. Theoretically you could squeeze whatever the hell you like in there, but we happen to be vegetarian (me 100%, Ultraboy 96%) and we actually like healthy shit, so our diet has mainly consisted of vegetables, beans, pulses, quinoa and some eggs and cheese.

beyonce_crocodile_1280x1024

Rhalou looks really good in a bikini since starting the One pitta one pot diet

We follow this routine to the letter every night from Monday to Friday and then come the weekend, we eat whatever the hell we like. Apparently the rest days are integral to the diet, as that way your body doesn’t grow accustomed to the reduced calorie intake and start adjusting. This might be bollocks though, I’m no expert. I couldn’t see how I could lose weight and still eat pizza and cake for two days a week, but the extra pounds I grew on my ass have disappeared and I haven’t once felt hungry or even thought much about food for weeks now.

It helps that Ultraboy does most of the cooking. It’s easier to eat what’s in front of you if you don’t have to think about it. So I recommend followers of the One pitta one pot diet find a willing love slave or fanatical extreme sports enthusiast to produce your pitta-sized dinners for you.

Admittedly this diet might suck if you were running a lot, which we’re not currently, but otherwise it is brilliant and everyone in our house looks well sexy with their clothes off.

Please note: Rhalou is not a dietician or a miracle worker. If you follow the One pitta one pot diet and do not achieve the desired results, sorry about that.

After an intense Christmas and freezing cold New Year, things are seriously hotting up in Rhal-land. 2012 turned out to be a tricky year, so towards the end of it I was feeling fed up. Relocating to the wilderness 400 miles away from friends and family with no reliable income, no transport and no idea was bound to be challenging. But then my one saving grace (running) started playing up (dodgy knee) and I really began to lose hope.

I rely on running a great deal to sort my shit out. It makes me feel good about myself, look better naked, and I find the process meditative and incredibly healing. Not being able to run is a bit like having a limb removed or losing your iPhone. IT JUST MAKES EVERYTHING HARDER. Pray for my poorly leg, dear friends.

Add an injured Ultraboy into the mix (he recently had arm surgery following a kayaking accident, and can’t even tie his own shoes right now) and you get a serious case of cabin fever. But aside from a limp limb and an armless ultra runner, I’m pleased to say that, thanks to Divine Providence, Chaka Khan and the back up of some truly excellent girlfriends, things are on the up. Okay, Chaka Khan didn’t actually do anything. But her mere presence in the universe makes everything better.

I was recently offered a job at The Hawick News, my local Scottish Borders newspaper, and it has made the world of difference to Operation City Chick in the Sticks. Writing for a weekly paper is immensely challenging, fun and interesting and a great way to get to know the area and the lovely people in it. Plus it gets me out the house and away from those chickens. Learning to communicate with human beings again has been fun… Bekerrrr.

I’m also delighted to have been asked to speak at Write This Run, a cool new running blogger event in May. You can still get tickets Here so come on down to London and listen to me crack jokes about chickens, err, I mean talk expertly about hill running. And by May my bloody leg is bound to have healed, so I’ll be running about the fields with the baby lambs and will have loads to say.

Running = sexy

On that note, I should probably write a blog about running too. But I caved in and bought a scooter instead. Balls to running up hills, from now on I intend to breeze up them at a comfortable 30 mph. In the absence of anything useful to say about my favourite sport, go out and buy the latest issue of Women’s Running magazine instead. I heard a rumour that someone might have managed to persuade the editor Chris to publish an article on the two greatest pastimes ever invented, sex and running. Oh yeeeeah.

 

Hi kids. Sometimes life is shit. Even at Christmas. Existence is an endless rocky road of pitfalls and murky puddles and suffering is all part of the human condition. Running helps (I’ve been running loads again, I like it). But we all deserve a break sometimes. So to celebrate, I bring you Rhalou’s Christmas Rocky Road; a special recipe guaranteed to smooth out the lumps and bumps of your shitty life and make you as high as a sugar Christmas fairy.

Method

Step 1. Google ‘Rocky Road’. Randomly click on a recipe. I recommend Nigella Lawson’s Rocky Road Crunch Bars because Nigella oozes sexual chocolate lust, so she’s bound to know a thing or two about good Rocky Road.

Double the quantity of everything fun in it.

Then go to the supermarket. Aldi or Lidl is fine; once all that sugar is melted down none of your friends will know you opted for the cheap shit.

It’s imperative that you are starving hungry/slightly drunk during your supermarket visit so that you can peruse the chocolate aisles guilt-free, so  skip lunch.

Put the naughtiest most fattening things you can find in your shopping basket.

Go home and change into some leisure wear that you’re not afraid to get completely covered in chocolate/marshmallow/red wine vomit.

Hit the kitchen.

Suggested disco Christmas ingredients:-

  • 125 grams unsalted real butter.
  • 800 grams chocolate broken into pieces (a mixture of dark and milk is fine. Fuck it, make it 900 grams).
  • 200 grams white chocolate.
  • 3 tablespoons golden syrup.
  • 300 grams amaretto biscuits (rich tea is best for normal Rocky Road, but amaretto gives it a special Christmas kick. You can get it well cheap at Lidl).
  • 200 grams marshmallows.
  • 100g (or whatever) of glacé cherries.
  • Some random bags of chocolates. I prefer chocolate covered raisins, but whatever floats your boat.
  • One bottle of moderately expensive red wine.
  • 50g caster sugar, just for fun.
  • A bit more cocoa powder.
  • 2 teaspoons Icing sugar for dusting.
  • I have no idea where all these random capital letters have come from. It’s the stupid format. Sorry about that.

Step 2. Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a pan. Grip the spoon with both hands and lick off as much chocolate as you can while dripping it liberally on yourself. Film this and live stream it to perverts overseas to pay for all the ingredients.

Step 3. This is the festive bit. Put the amaretto biscuits into a bag and then bash them with a rolling pin. Amaretto smells like Christmas. Pretend the biscuits are someone that pissed you off recently and vent your anger on them. Even if you’re really into Christmas, you’ll still benefit from a good bit of biscuit bashing. But not too hard, you’re aiming for both crumbs and chunks of biscuits.

Step 4. Put everything in a big bowl. Add the marshmallows and the chocolate raisins and anything else distilled with the essence of sin you might find laying about the house. Shopping for mini marshmallows is a real bitch, so just get normal sized ones and cut them up with scissors. Remember to put the scissors back in the drawer without wiping them to piss off your spouse/mum/flatmate.

Step 5. Do the same with the glacé cherries. Cutting them into bits is a messy business, especially if you’re already covered in chocolate, so eat as many as you can to avoid having to put them in the bowl.

Step 6. If you haven’t already, open the wine and drink it. Don’t bother with a glass, you’re sticky enough already. Just glug straight from the bottle.

Step 6.5 Add some extra sugar and chocolate just for the hell of it.

Step 7. Spoon the gooey sexiness into a baking tray lined with baking paper. Flatten the mixture using your hands/tongue/feet.

Step 8. Melt the white chocolate and splat it liberally on top. You should be good and drunk by now. Drink the rest of the melted white chocolate, or rub it on yourself. It’s okay if your Rocky Road looks like road kill. Life is a rocky road and your dessert should reflect your inner turmoil.

Step 9. Feel free to add more shit on top of your Rocky Road if the mood takes you. I was going to put chocolate stars on it but I ran out of money.

Step 10. Refrigerate your tray of disco delights overnight. If you’re pissed enough, you’ll have no recollection of making it and it’ll be a lovely breakfast surprise for you.

Step 11. Wake up, drink a Bloody Mary and cut your rock hard Rocky Road into fingers. This is not as easy as it sounds as it’ll be really bloody hard by now, so use a massive knife. Then dust lovingly with icing sugar.

Step 12. Give a couple of fingers to your friends and loved ones, but save most of it for yourself.

Step 13. Get really drunk/high and gorge on Rocky Road until you feel so sick you have to run a marathon just to burn off the sugar.

Merry Christmas sexy monkeys x x

After showing the World Wide Web my bare naked bottom, I’m not sure I can top my last blog. I admit I was being deliberately facetious. I am well aware my nudist utopian vision of the future was slightly fanciful. Apart from breast and testicle support issues, which would seriously hinder recreational sporting activities, the seasonal nature of UK weather does make excessive nudity rather impractical. Especially for those of us lucky enough to live north of the border.

Now that winter is firmly on the horizon, I’m actually wearing twice as many clothes as usual and have no desire to be naked. I even have a hot water bottle tucked beneath my jumper as I type so that I don’t incur excessive daytime heating bills and piss my boyfriend off. It’s only October and I can see my breath. Being naked suddenly seems like a really bad idea. Oh how I miss those halcyon days… On the plus side, living in The Borders (AKA the knitwear mecca) I have easy access to cheap cashmere jumpers. Fluffy Mongolian goat’s wool on your skin is arguably the next best thing to being naked.

I am a robot

In my new winter mindset, this week I have mostly been thinking about gadgets. Running gadgets, cooking gadgets, texting gadgets and chicken coop gadgets. I’m a hippy and I want to run naked in the fields, while secretly relying heavily on modernity. I live in the wilderness and yet my life is suffused with technology. Ultraboy is a self-confessed ‘early adopter’ (gadget freak) and insists on having the very latest of everything. Consequently we own a microwave cooker that creates four-course meals in six minutes and cleans itself afterwards, a television the size of a small country and a chicken coop that automatically closes itself at dusk. And don’t get me started on the ridiculous amount of fancy equipment required to go out for a run. Despite technically living in the countryside, I am the commanding officer of a small but perfectly formed spaceship.

I have embraced modernity, but we have a love/hate relationship and sometimes I really fucking hate it. Especially smart phones; or Twitter to be more precise. Oh Twitter, the wonderful social media site which brought me true love, hourly inspirational philosophy, re-housed my wild cat Rocky with Bangs and Charlie Dark and enabled me to acquire two budget iPhones. Twitter you are my greatest friend and my loathsome enemy. I love you when I’m racing and you bring me motivation and encouragement, I cherish you when I’m lonely and you bring me cyber love. But I hate you when my boyfriend ignores me in favour of discussing minimalist footwear with you in minute detail late at night, and I absolutely loathe you when all my friends down south are clearly having a better time than me.

Like last weekend for example, when the Run Dem Crew all jetted off to Amsterdam to run marathons and party like mad, and I did not. Stupid Twitter, taunting me with your euphoric post-race tweets. I suppose I should be grateful, as I would not be here in this crazy, beautiful, technology-obsessed paradise if it wasn’t for you. But sometimes I secretly wish you’d just piss off and let me read a good book.

Alas the lure of the twinkly little bird button is strong and I find myself sneaking a look at you every damn day of my life. Especially as I work from home and my only companion is a small gang of quirky chickens, who don’t particularly care for human interaction, even in 140 characters, unless it involves a fistful of grain and a hasty exit.

Before emigrating to the wilderness, I thought country-life would involve log fires, permaculture and embracing survival basics. But it turns out I am incapable of rejecting modernity. In fact, out here in the hills I need it even more. I moved to the country to be a naked hippy and accidentally turned into a robot. I rely on the Internet heavily for human interaction and now I’ve grown used to a big sexy HD TV, I just don’t think I could ever return to my television-less life. Especially since there are considerably less people up here to distract me from X Factor.

However, in my bid to convince Ultraboy that my freelance career is an effective way to survive, until there’s frost on my laptop, I will continue to eschew central heating during the day. Thank God for running base layers. Two or three ultra tight wicking tops twinned with a fancy cashmere sweater and a hot water bottle make a workable solution. I look like a lunatic, but nobody can see me on Twitter. For all you know, I could still be tweeting naked.

 

There’s been a lot of talk on Twitter lately about Page 3. I’ve seen various posts by (articulate and very lovely) women, many of whom are good friends of mine, campaigning for the removal of Page 3 from The Sun newspaper, on the grounds that it objectifies women. They’ve made some very good points, and I can see why many people find the ‘national institution’ of nubile naked girl boobies on show in our newspapers to be offensive and outdated. But despite being a feminist, I disagree.

I agree that the way women are portrayed in the media is flawed. But inspired by Stephen Gough, the naked rambler who spent the best part of the past eight years in solitary confinement because he likes to swing in the wind, rather than banish naked breasts from the press altogether, I’d like to propose an alternate universe to Page 3. Get your kit off and put the kettle on, this may take a while…

Ultraboy has given you permission to view my naked bum, but only in comic form

I’m a university educated 33-year-old woman from East Anglia living with my partner in Scotland in a monogamous heterosexual relationship, and I love looking at pictures of naked tits. And vaginas, and penises, and bottoms. I just love naked people. I love being naked, I like looking at people who are naked, and I like the idea of being naked. I think everyone should spend more time with their kit off appreciating the fascinating human form in all its gorgeous glory.

I enjoy looking at naked bodies of all shapes and sizes, because it turns me on. But I also like looking at naked bodies because I’m fascinated by human beings. I like big people, little people, athletic people, hairy people, tattooed people, anatomically precise people, and every different variety of naked people on the planet. Not because I’m a sexual predator. The naked person I like looking at best of all is my lovely boyfriend Ultraboy (sigh). I don’t get off on viewing bare flesh because I want to hump everyone in sight. I have those needs well attended to at home. I’m a voyeur because I’m interested in human beings, the world, and what lies beneath all that Lycra.

I’ve always been this way. Perhaps it’s something to do with my liberal upbringing. As long as I can remember, I’ve been taking my clothes off and encouraging everyone else to do the same. As a child, you could always locate me by the trail of garments I’d hastily removed in my bid to achieve a more freeing state of attire.

Aged 16, I realised I could cash-in on my nudist attitude and started life modelling. Between the ages of 16 and 20, I modelled nude for all the local art colleges in Cambridge, and made an absolute killing. Probably because I was the only person under 30 willing to get my kit off. I imagine 16-year-old naked flesh was a novelty for the artists.

There are probably thousands of naked paintings, drawings, photographs and even the odd bronze statue of my naked arse floating around the world. It was never in any way sexual. It was all about art. It made me feel sexy, but I didn’t lie about with my legs splayed. I mostly lounged artistically, pretending to be from the Renaissance period, and occasionally tried to emulate a cherub.

I even modelled for my own art college, albeit at night so my fellow students didn’t have to see my vagina. Although a boy I had a crush on did once walk in unexpectedly when I was standing starkers on a table modelling for a night class (the classic ‘naked in school’ nightmare come to life). I went bright red from my nose down to my toes, but he painted such a beautiful picture of me, that I soon forgot to feel embarrassed and went home feeling slightly smug.

I’ve got a lot to thank my naked ass for. When I went to university, I paid for most of my studies by life modelling for the local art school. I basically got to sleep naked on a bed for a few hours a week for twice the wage I’d earn anywhere else. Sometimes I went straight to work having not been to bed at all, and slept off my hangover in front of strangers for cash. (Lord knows how those pictures came out).

Naked people: brilliant

It was never about ego. At 5 foot 3 with a naturally curvy frame, I’m not without my hang-ups. I’d love to tone up a bit and lose a few inches. I’m also a natural redhead, so I’m as white as milk and glow in the dark. But take a short, freckled, awkward girl out of her clothes and drape her on a chaise longue, and I suddenly feel like a goddess. It’s one of the few occasions in life when I am completely at peace. I was built for nudity. I suspect I was a rich Grecian layabout in a previous life.

In my late twenties my thirst for nudity led me to an even more questionable career, editing adult magazines for a living. Not Razzle (I’m not sure if it has any words to edit) but Penthouse Forum magazine. Think literary filth. (Alistair Campbell used to write for them). Again, this wasn’t through a sense of perversion, but absolute fascination. I was genuinely interested in pornography, erotica and naked flesh. I confess, I also thought it was a little bit hilariously funny. I have a really dark sense of humour inherited from my eccentric family and I find humour in the perverse and the macabre, which does on occasion get me into a bit of trouble. But if you can’t laugh your arse off at everything, what’s the bloody point?

And laugh my arse off I did. During my Penthouse Forum days I visited porn shoots, interrogated adult babies, crept into the odd dominatrix dungeon and even interviewed Buck Angel, the infamous female-to-male transsexual porn star with a huge ginger mangina (the sweetest man I’ve ever met).

These days I’ve toned it down a bit and prefer to write about running and fitness, while saving my nudity for the back garden (aside from the odd rambler, there is no one in the Scottish wilderness to see what I get up to). But while I spend more time with my clothes on these days (it is a bit cold up here) my move into fitness journalism was no mistake. There’s something decidedly sexy about people in tight Lycra, and the healthy, happy attitude of runners and fitness fanatics definitely lends itself well to my naked hippy mindset. I like being around people who are pleased with their own bodies. It makes me feel good.

Anyhoo before I start penning my memoirs, there is a point to my pro-nudist ramblings. I really don’t think we should do away with Page 3. Admittedly their captions need work; it’s a bit off to insinuate the pretty naked girl of the day would never get a chance to be a physicist if she applied herself. But otherwise, I would like to campaign for the complete opposite. I’d like to see MORE Page 3. But I’d also like to see Pages 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Why must we hide our vaginas away all the time? Are they really so threatening? Will you get lost up there, swallowed whole by the great lady garden devil woman in the sky? And what’s the big deal about tits? Is the subconscious fear of being eternally dependent on your mother’s breast milk so all-consuming that you must continue to both venerate and condemn those milky bags of flesh for time immemorial? In my alternate universe, in celebration of the female form, let’s give every damn page of every newspaper a naked woman, vagina and all! Let’s fill the world with bare naked ladies of all shapes and sizes and accept that we are all nude under our clothes. Boobs and bums are not scary, or intimidating, or otherworldly. We all have them, and they’re brilliant.

But let’s not stop there. To even out the playing field I want to see naked men too. Lots of them. I want juicy buttocks, bare naked abs, exposed chests and even a bit of cock please. Hell, let’s swing some balls out too (starting with Alcide the hunky werewolf from True Blood). Why not? It’s only fair. We’re all so bloody repressed. If everyone was naked a bit more of the time, then perhaps we’d all be a bit less obsessive about it and get on with the important things in life, like reading good books and running marathons.

Nudity is wonderful. Naked people are beautiful and sexy and interesting and should be celebrated, not clothed, hidden away and sneered at. Stephen Gough the naked rambler, I salute you! I’m off to dance naked in the field with the chickens (again. Yes that naked bum at the top of this blog really does belong to me).