Self-Isolation on the Algarve – Fat or Fit?

So as we settle into what is the new world norm of self-isolation and social-distancing how will our life change? Fortunately we don’t have to worry about losing jobs / businesses or having to look after kids so ours are first world problems.

Not having bars or restaurants to visit should reduce calorie intake by about 2000 per day so that has to be a winner but not being able to walk for miles around all the great local beauty spots will drastically affect the fitness levels.

It took about 4 minutes of understanding we were more housebound than normal to calculate if I walk from the front door, up to the roof terrace, lap of that, then back down and around the orange trees we have 190 steps. So 50 times a day and that will be close enough to the accepted 10,000 a day for a reasonably active lifestyle. That snail on the second step is going to get sick of the sight of me.

I’m sure a psychologist could read plenty into my first few days of self isolation in the food that I regressed to – chicksticks with chips, canned hotdog and beans sandwiches and bananas with ice-cream but that can’t last or else I’ll have Jamie Oliver knocking on the front door. So ‘fit’ it will have to be………..

The boss and I will be engaging in the Plank Challenge – that’s not a particularly aggressive type of pillow fight or a quiz against Donald Trump but how long you can hold the straight arm plank. As long as we are in isolation can we beat yesterday’s time by 15 seconds? That’s the target.

The world record was beaten recently and is a quite frankly ridiculous 8+ hours. So if we are still in isolation in 5 years time……………..That’s not the target

At the moment we are still allowed out for short periods of exercise so as long as that continues (now banned in Coronavirus hotspots such as Italy and Spain) we should be able to resist becoming part of the Netflix generation. That could come under threat if we are fully confined to barracks in the future.

However you are spending your self-isolation and / or social-distancing take care of yourselves.