Bitmore Athletic

To Bupa at Canary Wharf yesterday for the company medical, which was not quite the ghastly experience anticpated. The last time I submitted to one of these things, they tried to frighten me with a follow-up appointment at a cardiologist's rooms in Wimpole St. He took his fee and told me what I already knew: "You eat too much, especially too much dairy fat, and you're bone bloody idle." That was three years and many, many dinners ago.

This time, a pleasant surprise. Weight and blood pressure down - the BP actually in the safe zone - no sign of anything nasty in urine or other samples, lung age corresponds more or less to actual age, no sign of prostate playing up, eyes, hearing, teeth good, ECG good.

Three cheers then? Well, no. Two. Still overweight and all is concentrated on my waist. This elevates the risk of diabetes, though from 1/100 to 1/25. The answer is to be a bit more athletic, which means doing a bit more walking and doing it a bit more briskly. Swimming also maybe. Ought really to get weight comfortably under 90 kilos, so about 6 to 8 to shed.

The only thing worthy of a ticking off were triglycerides in the blood stream and the doc said dairy fat and processed meat have pretty much to be cut out and to go easy on olive oil in cooking. Miserable, but what is the alternative?

The same old story: eat less, move more.