BMI, damn BMIs and genetics

I finished off day 16 of Juneathon with another 60 crunches and a few push-ups not even worth counting. A pretty depressing day on the exercise front, and the knee not feeling substantially better – and no material change this morning, so didn’t even attempt cycling. This morning’s effort was another 60 crunches which I’ll top up with some more this evening; see if I can do a thousand or so crunches in the next five days of enforced no running – adding deep stretching and push-ups as the week progresses.

But as to the subject line; people who’ve known me for a while (say, more than 18 months) will know that I was a little tubby up to Apr 09 or thereabouts. In the run-up to the wedding I lost about 19kg, dropping my BMI from 29 (on the verge of obese) to 25 (on the threshold of normal), which I was pretty pleased about. When I saw the Doc yesterday about my knee, whilst he did congratulate me on “turning my life around”, he did make clear that as a man of South Asian origin my propensity for type 2 diabetes (the type caused by having too much fat in your system) is much higher and I should be aiming for a BMI of 23. This is going to mean another 5-7kg (the best part of a stone!) needs to be lost. Whilst this was the long term plan anyway, it was a bit frustrating – I thought I’d met the ‘healthy’ goalpost and was just aiming for ‘fit’ whereas it now feels like I’m still in the fat camp fighting my way out.

But I will do it, damnit. I’ll kick the crap out of my genes by any means I have available, even if it means I become a calorie counting nark once again. Bring it on.