Bermuda Stone There is a mythical expression here amongst ex-pats known as the 'Bermuda Stone.' Simply the amount of weight you put on once you've lived here for 6 months or so. And I am not proud to say that I have found it.... around my waist.

I have put on a stone in weight since last July, this despite not knowlingly eating less healthily or doing less active sport (I actually do more) and drinking probably the same amount as I did in Chicago (still too much granted).

I actually think that it is down to my daily routine just being very, very different. I used to walk everywhere in Chicago including the three and a half mile round trip to and from work and I used to regularly bike short trips. I would walk everywhere from the office and home. Not now, I don't walk anywhere of any distance nor do we use our bikes, even though we always promise that we will every weekend. Decisively we now own a car, and didn't in Chicago.

Bermuda is not a walking place, take a look around and you will realise. The roads are narrow, and hilly, the locals compete with the French for the world's worst drivers and apart from in Hamilton there aren't any pavements.

There is the unpaved old Railway Trail which stretches the whole of the island, and which I've actually only driven over. Naughty, although I am considering partaking in the End to End, a walk from one end of Bermuda to the other, all 21.1 miles of it on May 2nd, which takes in large parts of the Railway Trail.

It is baffling that recently I've been taking extra care with my cholesterol levels, and yet I have still packed so much weight on. I hate diets, never been a lard arse but I have to do something, otherwise it'll be moving from the 'Bermuda Stone' to the boulder next!  ¶ 16:51