Health & Fitness Scotland

21/11/2025

Never in the history of human society has this been more true.

How many reading this can honestly say that their family, friends and colleagues pay full attention when they speak?

Do you pay full attention when others speak?

Or does the buzz and ping of notifications divert your focus?

We are a generation plugged into the strongest dopamine stimulation device that has ever existed.

Cheap and easy hits on tap.

Everyone is an addict unless they live off grid and/or have a dumb phone!

I doubt the situation will get any better, ever..

Unless...

You make hard choices,

There is choice again, always a choice in everything.

Actually it's the easy choice.

Who comes first?

The person physically in front of you, you likely, chose to spend time with?

Or the person somewhere else, maybe a continent away, or a software programme pulling your sleeve for attention?

Are you the choice for another?

Or are we all so low in self esteem and lacking in respect for self and others.

That we are willing to potentially sacrifice the moment we are in with another human being.

For a cheap hit?!

How do you want your next real connection to play out and which brain software do you want to upgrade?

Choice is yours.

12/11/2025

We visited Greg Laws at Biltong Bothy yesterday and got a personal tour of his setup.

What passionate advocate for traditional, artisanal, natural and top quality produce.

His Biltong is incredibly tasty, made in a time honoured way, no artificial additives.

Just deep taste.

If you are looking for a Carnivore snack, although on Carnivore you don't really need snacks!

You would struggle to find a better quality and healthier option.

Made from grass fed Silverside with that yellow fat we all miss on modern meat.

That's taste folks and so healthy your body just says thank you as you eat it.

We stayed 2 hrs chewing the fat, literally. What an interesting and fascinating life he has led.

Look out for Greg and Biltong Bothy at a farmers market near you.

Ask some questions and dive deeper into the traditions that have led him to this place.

Life is for learning.

11/11/2025

How did I get here?

Do you ever ask yourself this question?

It's a long road to the back of this horse.

Many choices over 50+ years.

Have you ever considered that everything you have in your life right now is down to a choice you've made at some point in the past?

Not the events that happen, but your reactions and responses.

First proper job was a paper round at 13, I seemed to adopt the rounds that others left and ended up doing 5 miles a morning before school.

Living in rural Angus there was berry picking in the summer, tattie picking and grouse/pheasant beating in Autumn.

I moved onto a Jackaroo on an Australian Sheep Station at 17.

Then Lifeguard and gardener at University back in the UK.

Physiotherapist
Hypnotherapist
Nutritionist
Documentary maker (the cattle drive shot above)
Public speaker

Much more to come. 53 is not done and pipe/slippers territory for sure.

As Gary V said recently 30more good years ahead. I'm just getting started.

All the above were choices and opportunities taken.

There were many I missed or turned down due to being too shy, procrastination, eyes shut to the obvious.

And without the supposedly bad choices and those missed opportunities I wouldn't be where I am now. So no regrets.

Just learned lessons.

What's brought you to where you are now?

Ever thought about it?

Feel free to list them below.

Photo credit Cecilia Macchione.

08/11/2025

November is not traditionally the time of year for taking honey from your bees.

They should be tucked up for winter by now.

They are still flying though. 14deg at this time of year!

Who remembers winters in the 80's with snow from October to April and the money's worth of a season ticket from Skiing at Glenshee realised by Christmas?

Well not anymore.

No snow and bees still fly!

However there are now 55 frames of honey to process. Mostly heather with some mixed flower.

It's a sticky bit great job.

The bees are now sorted for winter and the 1 colony I started with in Spring is now 4.

Nature is great

31/10/2025

The dream team.

Longevity studies show the number one influence, bar none, on a long, happy and healthy life.

Is your social circle, friends and family.

So basically everyone you know well and hold dear.

I've travelled with these guys, literally in their pockets, for the last year.

It's been like working with my best mates.

Do we get on 100% of the time? Of course not.

Life is a mix of negotiation, empathy, ego battling, compromise and fun.

It turned out pretty well though.

I think that will come out in the culmination of the year's work and travel.

Can't wait to see what the next few years bring for us all.

It's been some ride so far!

Photograph courtesy of the guy holding the camera (John Need)

27/10/2025

All cute little ducklings grow up!

If you all remember from a couple of months ago, I posted about a duckling "Cheapy" that was rejected by the chicken that hatched it.

We brought it inside and he was a pet for a few weeks till he decided outside was where he should be.

I have just come back from almost a month in the States and he's not a duckling anymore!

The only constant is change.

Doesn't matter where you are at, it will change at some point.

If you take consistent action then the change will likely be swifter.

So if you don't like where you are, take some action.

Even if it seems a small insignificant move. It's still a move in a different direction.

Many small moves build to a life changing event eventually, and often faster than you think

You won't be a duckling forever.

Be more Cheapy!

Black East Indian crossed with a runner duck for reference ,🦆

26/10/2025

Knowing who makes your food is pretty important

Toad in the hole sausage shop in Blairgowrie is one of those.

Aaron who runs it is chatty, has great conversation and is open to suggestions re recipes.

He made us 3kg of Carnivore sausages.

Sounds like a paradox? Did you know most sausages have rusk in them?

Carnivore sausages just have meat, salt, some white pepper and a little herb.

They were fat, juicy and full of flavour.

Aaron delivered on every point.

Do you know who makes your food and what is in it, anymore?

I'll guarantee your Granny did and she likely had some say in the matter, because she had a relationship with the suppliers,

and they knew who she was, by Name!

If you want to have more say over what's on your plate.

You can do a lot worse than popping in and having a chat with Aaron.

You might come out with a smile having made a new connection.

17/10/2025

Nature has a way of adapting to everything we throw at it.

Humans in their ego think that they are destroying the planet, irreversibly changing things for the worse.

Well the planet has been here before, many times!

I read recently in a geology book that Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh is an extinct volcano,

That

It's been the floor of the ocean,
the summit of a mountain range,
a desert,
a rain forest,
an ice sheet
and
at the moment the highest point of the city of Edinburgh.

It's some of the oldest known rock on the planet.

It's seen it all and we are just a tiny iteration, or irritation, depending on your view, of its experience.

So as we march, or are marched, towards Net Zero. Doing our best to save a planet that couldn't care less and will be here well after we are gone.

Ask yourself:

Does the Harlem Raccoon care that it lives in the middle of a city?

Is it annoyed that we give it free food, junk food at that and it doesn't have to hunt for it in the wild.

You see nature adapts, always.

No matter what we do, or try, or fix, or change.

The complexity of life and the multitude of interwoven relationships are impossible to fathom.

How can you predict what will happen if you raise a windfarm?

Buy an electric car?

Go carbon neutral, what does that actually mean in practice? Off-setting it how?

Plant trees, what trees and where?

Sit on a flight from JFK to Edinburgh?

Recycle? How do you know what happens at the end point?

Discover and use a fungus to digest plastics?

Use bamboo toilet paper?

Grow a garden?

Keep.your own animals to eat

Does any of it make any difference at all.

The volcanoes and earthquakes will continue,

Floods and fires,

Ice forms and melts,

Weather is unpredictable,

We all live and all die.

How about instead of stressing all the time about it, we tried to realise we are actually an integral part of the system.

Part of the symbiosis,

and tried to live as part of it, rather than above or outside of it.

What would that look like?

What makes most sense?

Be curious, live with love, joy and kindness.

Good things might happen.

The Harlem Raccoon doesn't care either way.

He's got free food!

21/09/2025

This is highly anticipated, Conor is the co-director of the film project I'm involved with.

Raised in blood. Trained to kill. In the shadows of Fieldview, a chance encounter offers him something he never expected, redemption. Conor Taylor stars as Erik Brodie in Mortem.
Coming Soon.