The Maintenance Manual for a Sun-Shiny Human Being

Health and lifestyle balance, this sounds first a little bit like a leaflet in the doctor’s waiting room. You sit there, you look at the paper, and it says eat salad, make steps, drink water, don’t smoke, don’t eat this, don’t eat that. And yes, okay, this is maybe right. But for me health is not only this. For me health is much more connected with living with my wife, travelling, cooking, laughing, meeting friends, standing at the barbecue machine, seeing nice animals in the garden, and having the possibility to say in the morning, “Yes, today is a fine day.”

The Mayor started with my wife, because she had done one of these totally unhealthy healthy things again. On Sunday we were driving to Bremervörde, because there was a triathlon. My wife is preparing for a half Ironman near Flensburg, and for this she makes different competitions in different places. I am the driver, the supporter, and the cameraman. This is enough sport for me.

When we came to the parking place, they called us and said the water in the lake was very, very cold. So the triathlon became a duathlon. No swimming. Instead they made ten kilometres running, forty-one kilometres bicycling, and five kilometres running. This was the Olympic distance for the duathlon.

And my wife did very well. In her age class, she was first place. And from all the women who started, she was fifth overall. This is very good. I said to The Mayor, she has one problem. She is fifty-four years old, but in her thinking she is twenty-five. He laughed and said, okay, then in 2048 she can go to the Olympic Games, because then she will be seventy-six and still thinking like a fifty-four-year-old woman. That is maybe the dream.

I do not want to train for a half Ironman. I do not like running. Swimming, yes, a little bit, but not in action. Bicycling is okay, but my bicycle has a battery and a motor. This is my style. My wife has her style. She is the athlete, and I am the driver, the supporter, the cameraman, and sometimes the man who makes the food afterwards.

She analyses the videos I make. She looks at her swimming style, her running style, her bicycling style. In the moment, bicycling is her very, very best discipline. When she is on tour with her light racing bicycle, she drives thirty-four or thirty-five kilometres per hour. This is very good. When she was younger, running was her best. Now it is bicycling, then swimming, then running. Running is maybe blocked a little bit in the moment, but she gets older and older and her bicycle gets better and better. This is also a nice kind of crazy.

For me, when I think about health, I think first: I want to live with my wife. This is the first thing. Then I want to see many different countries. We want to buy a mobile home and drive through Europe and Germany. For this I want my health. Not for medals. Not for winning something. For living. For travelling. For sitting somewhere with coffee, looking at a new place, and saying, “Ah, this is nice.”

The Mayor asked me when I felt really alive in my body, not because of sport, but because life was good. And for me this was on Friday. We had two visitors, and I made a nice barbecue. They said it was fantastic what I created on the barbecue machine. This is for me a point where I say, yes, that was good for my life and good for my balance.

Also when we come together with our friends from Bremervörde and around the country, this gives me balance. We have fun, we have action, we make grilling, we make barbecue, we talk, we laugh. For me, the best place for balance is when I can cook for people or for my wife. This is a good feeling. It is nice for my body to live with this.

On Friday I made rib fingers, ribeye steaks, spare ribs, and a warm potato salad with olive oil, herbs, garlic, and sweet onions. The full cooking details belong in my Pineapple Recipe section, because otherwise I start with health and suddenly we are inside the barbecue machine for two days.

The best critic is always in the family. When my wife came into the kitchen, she smelled the potato salad and said, “Oh, what a nice smell.” Then she tasted it and said, “Wow, what is this?” And then I thought, yes, I made a good job.

The Mayor asked me about the battle between sensible Ralf and barbecue Ralf. This is a good question, because people always think barbecue means meat only. But this is not true. We only eat meat one time in the week. Other times we eat fish or vegetables. When I cook or barbecue, I use olive oil, garlic, good ingredients. I drink beetroot juice for my body. I try to do good things.

Barbecue can be vegetables. It can be fish. It can be many different things. I have a special cutter, and with this you can make potato steaks, with a crinkle cut. You put a little olive oil and garlic on top, put them on the barbecue machine, and it is fantastic. So sensible Ralf and barbecue Ralf are not always enemies. Sometimes they work together.

The Mayor also asked me about my version of strength, because my wife has this triathlon world. I said, for me, my strength is in the head. In the moment, physically, not so much. My work changed, and I sit too much in the office now. This is not really me. I am a salesman by nature; I like to drive, to move, to be with people. In an earlier part of my working life, I drove around seventy-five thousand kilometres per year. Now it is much less, and I feel this. It is not so good for my body.

But my wife says something true. When I have bad action in my life, I eat. This is actually my problem. So now she said we must make some different things and reduce my eating. A good friend told us about a special nutrition reset programme after she went on a spa holiday. It uses tablets with omega-3 and vitamins A, B, C, D, and so on. There is also a list of what you can eat and what you cannot eat.

It is interesting. You can eat many vegetables. You can eat some meat, but not pork. You can eat chicken, but not with the skin. You can eat cauliflower, but not broccoli, because they say broccoli has too much sugar inside. You can eat kale, but not Brussels sprouts.

I wanted to start immediately, but my wife said no, not this week, because I had to travel and I had to eat in the morning and evening outside. So we decided I would start on the next Monday morning.

The breakfast recipe with low-fat quark, sparkling water, blueberries, protein powder, and stevia also belongs in my Pineapple Recipe section, because even my healthy food somehow becomes a small kitchen experiment.

Before the programme begins, there are two loading days. You take the tablets, but for two days you must eat many fatty meals. I do not really know why, but when somebody says pork belly for health, I say, yes, no problem.

The Mayor asked me what I would say if another Brida member said health is boring, only salad and steps. I think health is not boring. It is nice to meet friends, drink a cup of coffee with them, talk, and laugh. Health is also the social people around your body. This is very good for you. When you talk with people, when you laugh, when you go into life and meet people, when you go on holiday together and have fun, this is also healthy.

For me, health is fire, music, coffee, love, and freedom. It is cooking. It is working in the garden. It is cleaning the house. It is movement, yes, but not only sport movement. It is life movement.

If I made a maintenance manual for a sun-shiny human being, the chapters would be dancing, laughing, eating with friends, good meals, coming together with friends, talking, and thinking positive. Not every time thinking, “Oh, what is with Mr Trump? What is with Mr Putin?” No. You must also say, “I stand up, and it is a fine day.”

You go outside. You make a small or a big turn around your country. You go for a walk. You find nice things in the world. A nice flower. Nice animals in the garden. Nice hedgehogs.

And we have hedgehogs. Oh yes.

On Friday evening, the two visitors saw the garden and said, “What is this?” Because it was like the hedgehogs had talked to each other and said, “You go to Ralf’s place. There is a big meal.”

The day before, my wife had made chicken on the barbecue, and we had some chicken breast left. She had read that hedgehogs love chicken breast, so she cut it into small pieces and put it outside. And then the hedgehogs came. On this evening we had six hedgehogs in the garden. In the hedgehog box, four hedgehogs were standing inside, but there were only three feeding stations, so they had to queue. This is very funny.

We have one station in front of the house, three stations in the box, and under my smoker, because it is raised from the ground, my wife put two more stations for the hedgehogs. We also have an old pan in the garden with water inside. The hedgehogs drink there, and the birds make a bath.

The visitors said, “It is like a zoo here.” And yes, it is a little bit like a zoo. But it is fantastic. We did not see so many hedgehogs in the garden before. It was very, very good.

This is also health for me. To see life. To feed a small animal. To stand in the garden and laugh because four hedgehogs are waiting for three feeding places. To make food for people and then see that even the animals think there is a good restaurant here.

So when I think about health and lifestyle balance, I do not think only about sport. My wife has her triathlon, and this is wonderful. I am proud of her. But my health is also for being with her, supporting her, travelling with her, cooking for her, and one day driving through Europe with a mobile home.

My strength is maybe not running. My bicycle has a battery and a motor. But I have strength in my head, in my humour, in my hands, in the way I cook, in the way I try to think positive, in the way I stand up and say, yes, today there is still sunshine somewhere.

Some things need oil. Some things need rest. Some things need fire. Some things need music. And some things should never be repaired, because they are already perfectly crazy.