It is one month today since I began to work on the physical self-improvement of my elderly body at Holmes Place. Only a month! I feel like someone who is giving up smoking. And I know that, there, one month is a dangerous time. Aww, just one. Awww, maybe I’ll take today off. No way. Of course, it’s easier when there are two of you. The shame of piking out…! But I actually don’t want to pike out. And we’ve been to Potsdamer Platz 26 days of 31 in May.
Four training sessions
with Nik, massages from Sascha and Lily, and a 40-minute daily routine of
suppleness and strength exercises, mostly without machines or equipment,
followed by my 10-minute aquarabesque routine. And a delicious finale in the
sauna and steam-room, and the bracing showers with their whistling birds (my
horsey friends can guess the result of that!) …
I’ve kept it up
religiously.
What I haven’t
kept up is the alcohol-free bit. After my week of cold chicken, my social life and
the cocktails at the Katz Orange took over and … well, the cucumber juice I
squeezed earlier in the week is still in the fridge. But I must have had ten
‘dry’ days in May … which is ten more than in the last couple of years put
together.
The original idea
behind this adventure was to restore my weakened bits, consequent on the
stroke. Then, when I saw my grotesque shape, amending that became just as
important to me. And so? What results?
Well, I myself can’t really see. I know
my shoulders don’t hunch now, I can walk much more steadily and dress more
easily. Several people have commented on how well I look, bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed. And has the saggy belly pulled back a few millimetres? Maybe. My
arabesques get out of the water now, too. I’m cheating far less on the
exercises, which unfortunately means they are more strenuous, but alas that
right-armed tenth press of 6kg in the weight lifting is still elusive. These
things take time and persistence!
There are just two
things that are undeniably ‘measureable’. Number one: for the first time since
the stroke slammed my right hand into uselessness I can suddenly use three of his
fingers to type with again, instead of just one! This is a singular joy to me.
Cause? I don’t know. But something is working now that wasn’t before!
The second thing
is … the scales. Not C sharp minor, but the weighing machine. When I arrived in
Berlin, with its restaurants and cocktail bars, I weighed around 84kg. Fair
enough for my height and age, but all in the wrong places. Well, without
consciously trying to lose weight, today I cracked the 80 barrier. 79.8kg. I’m
not sure that it has come off the sag and the flab, I’ll have to submit to
another photo session to ascertain that, but there’s 4 kilos less of it to sag.
That must be good!
So here we go,
with month number two. Wish me luck …
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