Low carb / Maffetone / other regimes

[El Gordo]

An update.

I mentioned that 3 or 4 Sundays ago, after a rather gentle cycle ride down the lake to enjoy a Starbuck's coffee in Thalwil (oh yes, we know how to enjoy ourselves over here), I managed to pull a muscle in my back. As I think I said before, I treated it as a blessing in disguise as it encouraged me to go the doc's and arrange some lovely Swiss physio. Which I did.

After 2 crunching sessions on the old massage table left me looking like a quivering pretzel, I finally graduated to the comically misnamed stability ball last week. Still under the sadistic tutelage of the same physiotherapist, I was led to the elliptical cross-trainer and told to keep going until he came back. 32 minutes later, within moments of my expiry point, and just as i was wondering whether health insurance covers funeral expenses, there was a loud crash and the gym door burst open, followed by a white-faced physio racing across the gym to rescue me from certain death. "I'm sorry," he said breathlessly, "It was only supposed to be ten minutes!"

But I survived, and have even repeated the 30-aerobic-minutes feat twice this week. Plus more core exercises and stretching. I'm back in the green zone.

The low carb eating regime has continued without serious breach. The odd bottle of vino is about as naughty as I've been, and one plate of pasta a couple of weekends ago, when we visited an Italian restaurant that had nothing low-carb on the menu. Or nothing that I wanted. It didn't kill me.

The near-three weeks of no exercise explains my weight-loss plateau, but I'm still nudging downwards. Am just about 20 pounds lighter now than I was in the early part of last month.

My plan is persist, and to get back out there. I still have Almeria in my sights, plus some other possibilities.

I remain unbroken, people. Hurrah!