I went climbing outdoors. There was a minor disaster - my buddy fell and twisted her ankle. I hope it's minor, but she needed to be carried to my car. (She seemed a bit better a little later). The fall was only from around 1 metre or less, but she landed awkwardly.

I really enjoyed it pre-disaster, and want to do it again. It is interesting - some pretty easy climbs were really tough until we located the good holds. All the climbs ended in a mantle to the top. This is was proper brown trouser time - we did some easy highballs, up to about 6 metres high, and you had no idea how the pads were positioned whilst going for it. In retrospect, maybe we should have top roped these rather than bouldered them.

I hate that about your friend! That seems like bad luck. Did she land in between the pads or was there something underneath that made the landing uneven?

Assuming the landing is good and there are adequate pads you could definitely fall safely from 18ft. An uncontrolled fall would be not be good though, especially on something like a tough mantle. With highballs I like to climb up the back of the boulder and scout the top out before committing. That allows me to chalk, tick and brush holds if needed plus asses how spicy the mantle might be.

She got it caught it the gap between pads. There were quite a lot of tree stumps at the bottom, so the layout may have been less than ideal.

We also only had two pads. I was the only one to drive there, and my car is Ford Focus which only seems to be big enough for two.

I had a play on my wall today, for around 2 hours. I did a momentum move at the top, with one hand on a small crimp and the other moving a pretty long distance. I fell, and my foot found the gap between pads.

Scouting out the finish would have been a good idea. The mantles with no hand holds were exciting - they tended to be a bit slabby, so I could inelegantly throw my weight forward to reduce the risk.

I think it will be fine - I have a full range of motion, and can put weight on it for a little while. It does get quite sore if I walk for a couple of minutes. I assume it will heal with a couple of days' rest.

I did a 2 mile walk yesterday. Normally I wouldn't bother logging something as mundane as this, but I'm not normally broken. It took ages, and I needed to use a random stick as a walking stick.

It feels a lot better today, and I can get up and down stairs without crawling.

My bruise is impressive.

17 September 2020

My foot hurt a bit in the morning, so I decided the best way for it to recover was to ignore the pain and load it.

• I did an hour's yoga before breakfast.
• I did 45 minutes pilates before lunch (work have started to put on these sessions for everyone.) I've not done it before; it felt kind of similar to yoga and so not too bad.
• I got a lunch and evening walk in, ending up on around 16,000 steps (it may be more, unlikely to be less - I smashed my Fitbit so this is a bit of a guess. I could use my phone, but I decided not to.)
• I hangboarded in the evening. I felt tired and sluggish at the start, but it ended up going pretty well. I did some pinch grip training, and ended up way below my maximum for this.

The foot stopped hurting during yoga, so my plan was a success. This was a bit of a surprise. Although I am a doctor, I'm not a medical one, and my self diagnosis tends to be: "You're fine. Carry on." It does sometimes work, but it's not foolproof.

The most egregious example of this not working entailed trying to walk home with two broken legs and concussion.

19 September 2020

15 mile walk. The ankle was mainly OK on this, so I may try climbing tomorrow.

20 September
I did an hour's yoga, and then did a 7 mile walk. My ankle was fine on these.

After lunch, I then had a go at climbing on my wall. My ankle hurt a lot on some moves, mainly jumpy ones with a lot of leg movement. So I mainly went for more static, easy routes. I was also afraid of falling and making things worse. I managed 45 minutes, which whilst not very long, was better than not climbing.

My hypothesis is that I'll be properly fixed by next weekend. I'm due to go scuba diving then, but it looks like it may be blown out.

The ankle hurt like hell overnight - I slept poorly. I guess climbing aggravated it. Maybe I should have taken a painkiller before bed.

22 September
Hangboarding. This went very well; I got around 12 seconds on the 12mm ledge, which is a personal best. I got 20 seconds with a 3 finger open crimp on the 21mm ledge.

I then did upper body lifts. I got 17 pull ups in a set, which may be a PB. I moved onto bench and military press, expecting to do well given how the other things had gone. In fact, they went averagely (55 kgs for a set of 5 bench; 35 kgs for a set of 5 press).

Weight: 141 pounds.

Ankle update: Rapidly loading or de-loading it makes it hurt; so I can't climb properly yet. Otherwise, it is fine.

Wow, you do a lot of sports. I started working out regularly this year but I'm lacking motivation at the moment. Do you have any advice how to get more motivated again?

Finding something you really like helps. For me, that is climbing, scuba and hiking. I view everything else (like lifting weights) as assistance for my main hobbies.

I'm not actually particularly good at any of these things, but I enjoy them, so I will keep doing them.

I'm also afraid that my diabetes remission will stop if I become sedentary. This obviously isn't a factor for most people, but definitely helps my motivation.

My ankle felt really good yesterday. I didn't do much exercise - I got a 7 mile walk in, but that was all. It felt good enough to climb in earnest.

Today, it's been relatively sore again. However, I can run and jump, and I couldn't before. So climbing is still feasible, although I am unlikely to get a chance until next week. I did 45 minutes pilates over lunch; I will do something (maybe kettlebells) this evening.

That's true. In addition I'm searching for some one to do sport with me. I think that's a lot more entertaining.

I hope your ankle will be fine soon.

I went diving, and was assaulted by an amorous dolphin for an hour.

The diving trip was four days. It was bloody brilliant. The dolphin was with us all dive, for about an hour. I did 4 dives, all pretty shallow, all for around 1 hour (my maximum). We were on the club rib. The weather was OK. It rained one day, and was a Force 5 on the dolphin day, but it was Northerly so we could get shelter easily.

There is good climbing in Portland, so one day I'll need to work out how to combine a scuba trip with climbing. Our B&B is run by climbers. It used to be owned by the mother of someone who runs two of the dive boats, but he sold it last year.

Today, I:

• Hangboarded
• Finger curled
• Benched 50 kgs for 3 sets of 10
• Military pressed 30 kgs for 3 sets of 10
• Got 22,000 steps in

Here is a video from the dolphin dive. I am top left, having forgotten to clip off my torch.


On Sunday, I did an hour of yoga and a hilly 10 mile walk in driving rain.

Yesterday, I played with kettlebells a bit. I did 3 sets of 5 goblet squat (32 kgs) and 200 swings, 2-handed (24 kgs).

Today, there was finally a brief lull in the rain over my lunch hour. I got a quick climb in. It actually went OK - I got a dyno move I failed on last time on my second attempt. It's not a very hard move, but I need to push hard off the right ankle to get it, and it was still a bit sore previous go but fine today.

7 October
1 hour yoga and a 4 mile walk - a relatively sedentary day

8 October
I did half an hour hangboarding over lunch. This was good - I am up to 10 second repeaters on the Beastmaker 12mm rung, which is the smallest rung I have.

I will do leg day later.

Saturday
10 mile walk.
I then played with a 24 kgs kettlbell - a 22 minute walk with it; then 100 swings.

Sunday
I went around my little brother, and had a go on his climbing wall. I did not climb well.

I then did a walk, getting around 13 miles done.

Monday
Rest day, so just a 7 mile walk in the rain.

Super cool video of the dolphin!

10s hang on the 12mm is strong. Nice work there.

Thanks! The hang is definitely max effort. I think my finger strength is reasonably strong relative to my overall level.

The dolphin, Danny, is apparently a regular at Portland. It's odd, I have dived there at least 30 times, and it was the first time I even heard about him.

Yesterday was leg day. Squat 4 sets of 5@80 kgs - I am weak; it felt hard. Deadlift 3 sets of 5 @110 kgs.

Today was my birthday. I did an hour yoga before breakfast. It was actually sunny over lunch, so I got a climb in. My little brother has been checked practicing heel hooks a lot. They are definitely not a strength if mine, so I spent quite a while on them, and got reasonable pressure through the leg a few times.

16 October
7 mile walk, then some hangboarding.

17 October
It rained all day, so I failed to climb. I got a 10 mile walk in, and then did upper body lifts:
60 kgs bent over row, 3 sets of 5
55 kgs bench, 3 sets of 6.
35 kgs OHP, 4 sets of 5.

18 October
I did an hour's yoga before lunch, and got a 90 minute climb in after lunch. It was freezing, but dry, so reasonable weather for it. I did an 8 mile walk in the evening, getting an average step count 18,000 per day over the week.

I recently read this book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Roy Taylor is the guy who ran the studies which inspired my diet. I read all his academic papers, and pieced together the information for myself. But it's nice to have it all summarised in one place. If you have pre-diabetes or diabetes, I cannot recommend the book strongly enough. (If you don't, it is probably not interesting.)

One thing I hadn't quite appreciated is the extent to which genetics determines if you are at risk.

• Type II is casued by fat around the liver and pancreas
• For fat to store there, you need to eat too many calories for many years, and to have muscular insulin resistance. The muscular resistance is laregly genetic.
• You need to have exhausted the supply of fat under the skin - this amount of fat is also genetic.
• Your pancreatic beta cells need to react badly to fat. This is genetic. Some people get fatty pancreas but not Type II.
• With all these things in place, if you lose 15 kgs then there is a good chance you will lose the pancreatic and liver fat.
• The 15 kgs is independent of BMI. You have a genetically determined "personal fat threshold", which for me is below obese. This is the point at which fat starts to build up around the liver.
• If the 15kgs loss is early enough, the beta cells recover and the Type II reverses.
• "Early enough" in the previous bullet is genetic - some people don't recover after 2 years; some recover after 20 years.

I have been pretty active the last week, but my logging has been poor.

I hangoarded twice; did leg day and upper body day; and got a climb in.

I am now on a diving holiday. We saw a dogfish on th night dive yesterday and a nurse hound today.

Diving was good.

There were plenty of boulders around to keep me entertained between dives. (I am top left. I didn't make it to the top, as a couple of handholds came off in my hand whilst I was up there. I was also in my sandals.)



We saw a nursehound on the second dive (a spotty shark, about 4.5 feet long.) It's only the second one I've seen.

The third dive was lumpy, so we didn't get far offshore. We dived a pinnacle, which was stunning.

We ate at a pub that night, about 3 miles away. I walked there and back, and didn't need a torch due to the moonlight.



The fourth dive was a pinnacle further out, which was stunning.

The fifth dive was a shallow river. We saw a plaice; three thornback rays and a red gurnard.

I got back on Tuesday. Since then, my exercise has been:

Wednesday
Hangboarding, didn't set any PRs but not a shabby session.

Thursday
Leg day.
Squat, 4 sets of 5, 85 kgs.
Deadlift, 2 sets of 5, 110 kgs. I meant to do more sets, but ran out of time. (I needed to head out aftwerwards.)

Today
An hour climbing over lunch. My technique was OK on the footwork practice, but I was pretty average (at best) at the dyno practice.

I have been doing some 5 day Fitbit step challenge. I am currently on over 100,000, and seem to be winning by around 30,000.

It's been a while since I logged.

I've still been pretty active. The Fitbit step count challenge things proved trickier than normal to win last week - I got 185,000 steps for the week, including a 20 mile walk on Sunday.

I lifted weights 3 times, and climbed twice, so overall it was an OK week.

This week, I climbed today over lunch.

Weight wise, I had a bunch of consecutive weigh ins at 145 pounds, which is towards the top of my range, so I was vaguely considering eating less. However, I came in at 142 today, so it was probably just normal water weight fluctuations.

My dad collapsed on Thursday, and my mum took him to hospital. He has low sodium in blood, and the hypothesis is that the cause is oesophageal cancer.

I did an hour of yoga on Thursday. Then I climbed - it was a very poor session.

I did leg day on Friday, building up to 3 sets of 10 squats, 80 kgs; and 3 sets of 10 deadlift, 100 kgs. I am new to sets of 10 - they seem pretty brutal.

I visited my little brother yesterday, with a vague aim of climbing on his outdoor wall. It rained, do we did a 7 or 8 mile walk instead.

I did an hour of yoga today. I then climbed. It was a really good session, my best for a long time. I will do a 9 mile walk later today.