Nothing Much
For those interested in these things, I put a post up in my writing pages.
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I had a strange day. I had a dentist appointment this afternoon at which I expected to have some work done underneath a deep, old filling – a shadow showed up on an x-ray at my last check up. I’m normally OK at the dentist, but I’d got myself apprehensive about this one, expecting it to be tough going. In fact, after the dentist had very thoroughly numbed me up, she decided that the x-ray was misleading and the work didn’t have to be done at all. Relief all round. I’m drinking through a straw, though, until the anaesthetic wears off.
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At the beginning of April, I put up a post on my Diabetes and Me pages about an eight-week experiment I’m conducting on myself. The post is here:
I’m still in week six of the experiment, but so far I’ve lost more than 3.4 kilograms (about 7.5lbs) and my average blood pressure is markedly down. It’s been an interesting experience, especially tracking blood pressure. Even though the average is clearly down, there are still days (or even couples of days) where my BP is elevated for no obvious reason. This has got me thinking, and those thoughts will probably turn up in a Substack post at some point. A teaser is to say that I see now why UK doctors look at average BP not at absolute numbers.
I would say that the benefits have come about 75-80% from diet and 20-25% from exercise. A 30 to 45 minute swim (which I do twice a week) has an obvious impact, and, despite what I said at the beginning of the experiment, I’m starting up a couch-to-5k programme again. I dare say the muscle memory will kick back in, but so far my short jog sessions have been more pachyderm than gazelle. I may yet find a happy distance of around 3.5k around our hill, but I’m not back to that stage yet – 2.8km yesterday was hard, slow going and included about 3.5 minutes of walking (in 30-second bursts).
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In November 2020, I mentioned here that I was reading and enjoying Peter Ross’s A Tomb With A View, his tour of graveyards. His latest is Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church. It is beautifully written with his trademark eye for the telling metaphor or simile, insight, and sentences that catch you off guard. Highly recommended.
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