'I must do everything in my power to not die': Jeremy Clarkson has taken up Pilates
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed how he has taken up Pilates as he is desperate to stay alive for the sake of his grandchildren.
Jeremy Clarkson has taken up Pilates.
The 'Clarkson's Farm' star has revealed that he is exercising because he is "desperate not to die" following heart surgery last year as he wants to spend time with his granddaughters.
Writing in his Sunday Times newspaper column, Jeremy said: "I'm not going to dwell on the joys of being a grandparent because what can be said about it has already been said.
"But I have decided it's so wonderful I want it to go on for as long as is humanly possible. Which means I must do everything in my power to not die."
The 64-year-old presenter continued: "(But) I dislike discomfort, loathe bicycles and find gyms and everyone in them weird.
"I decided I'd give Pilates a bash. On day one, the teacher made me lie down on the table top with my feet on a sort of cross-member and, for an hour, breathe in through my nose and out my mouth.
"I found this very easy and decided I'd have another lesson the very next day.
"And whisper this, I'm not unenjoying it."
Jeremy revealed last year that he had to have an urgent heart procedure after a "sudden deterioration" in his health that doctors said left him "maybe" days from death.
The former 'Top Gear' host explained that he underwent the operation after he started feeling "weak" while on holiday as he could barely swim or walk up the stairs.
Clarkson wrote: "It wasn’t far, maybe the length of two swimming pools. But when I finally reached the beach, there was more water in my lungs than there is in Lake Superior, and I was mostly dead... I’m not exaggerating. These problems all manifested themselves in one day."
Upon returning to the UK, he noticed a tingling sensation in his arm and "tightness" in his chest while working on his Cotswolds farm, and subsequently underwent a procedure to clear his blocked arteries.
He added: "It seems that of the arteries feeding my heart with nourishing blood, one was completely blocked and the second of three was heading that way.
"So he [the doctor] made a hole in my wrist, inserted his Dyno-Rod equipment and went in for a closer look. The question was this. Were the arteries so ruined that I’d need an emergency heart bypass?
"Or could he use his Dyno-Rods and some ultrasonic battering rams to loosen them up before inserting a stent?... It took two hours and at one point it felt like he’d put a Hoover pipe up my arm, along with a pile driver, and was busy inside my heart with a B and Q chisel and hammer gift set.
"It wasn’t especially painful. Just odd."
