I can’t believe I have been here two weeks already. Time seems to fly by (and weirdly enough stand still at the same time), especially when the outdoors keeps calling my name each time I have at least two hours free of programme items.
My 70th birthday came and went. I had not felt like making any grand plans, in case a new variant, not to mention a new virus, would materialise and/or people got sick and unable or unwilling to travel and/or a new type of local lockdown so that everything had to be cancelled, or whatever. Then, at some point, the universe made the plans for me. Not what I would have envisaged, but I am very happy to be here.
Everything is well organised, and everybody is competent, super friendly and helpful and keep saying moin like in the part of southern Denmark my mother was from.
The various types of gymnastics and workouts, as well as the aquafitness, the massage (the Marnitz method – I must try to find a Marnitz therapist in Berlin), the walks in the fresh air – and when time permits even by the sea, the stillness and darkness at night – it is all doing me so much good, and I am already wondering how I will find the discipline to keep up this level of part activity/part zen back home, especially since I don’t want to go to any of the fitness centres in Berlin in this age of epi- and pandemics and people acting like it is the good old days.
There is of course always a couple of videos from Gabi Fastner plus a walk every day, so I guess the sum total of what I had gotten used to doing post-surgery, was not that much less than what I am doing here, only too far away from the sea 😊.
Also since the diagnosis, I have been studying the rising awareness of the effect of not only exercise but also of diet on attempts to avoid recurrence of hormone-positive forms of cancer such as the one I had, not to mention the importance of achieving and keeping a minimal body weight on the low end of the recommended BMI. Especially in light of the fact that I only take a very mild dose of the recommended hormone inhibitor, and then only half a tablet daily. (I hate what I read about the side effects and I get the feeling that nobody is totally certain of the extent of the positive effects).
Based on what I have learned, I had therefore started intermittent fasting, 16:8, and focusing on (sh..loads of) salads, vegetables, pulses, lentils, whole-grains, nuts and seeds, citrus fruits, very rarely meat, and then only fish and turkey, and NO added sugar and definitely no processed food – basically an anti-inflammatory, vegan diet (while still allowing myself a dinner out from time to time, throwing all caution to the winds, and even having a glass of wine on occasion, while words like dessert and cake have almost gone from my vocabulary now that I know to what extent sugar is like a cancer fertilizer).
In that light, I do not find the food here particularly healthy, although the mid-day, cooked meal is certainly good, fresh, well prepared, nicely presented, and very varied with at least one vegetarian option each day, and I shall certainly miss having all meals prepared and served to me, in addition to having all the exercise facilities so close at hand. But for now, I am happy to still have two weeks left here.
Anyway, it turns out not all the storks have left. Or perhaps this one was just stopping over from somewhere else.
