March 5th, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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In medicine we’re often reminded not to base our therapy solely on lab test results. Although it’s tempting to reduce patient care to a checklist of “normal” bloodwork targets, we all know that this is only a fraction of the total health picture. Today I made a mistake that brought this truism home: “Don’t treat the number, treat the patient.”
I’m turning 40 this year and decided to make an ambitious fitness goal for myself — to be in better shape at 40 than I was at 30. No small feat for a person who used to be in good form a decade ago (not so much now, ahem). So, I joined a gym owned by an affable triathlete and invited her to make me her project. Let’s just say that Meredith believes that one piece of sprouted grain bread is the breakfast of champions — and with that she has me doing many hours of cardio sprints and strength training every week. I’m still alive. Barely.
Today in my endurance spinning class (an unusual form of torture where you get yelled at — I mean encouraged — on a stationary bicycle for an hour and a half in a dark room filled with high-decibel rock music and sweaty co-sufferers), I was somewhat alarmed by my heart rate. I was taught in medical school that one’s maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. So mine should be about 180. I assumed that anything higher than that was incompatible with life.
So when I saw my heart rate monitor rise to 185 on a steep climb at maximum speed, I wondered if I might be about to die. I certainly felt physically challenged, but not quite at death’s door, so I looked around sheepishly at my nearest peer’s monitor to see if she was handling the strain any better. Nope, she was also at 185. “Gee, what a coincidence,” I thought. “We must be exactly the same fitness level.” Read more »
November 28th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips, True Stories
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Since March I’ve been working out with a fitness instructor. She is the toughest, most motivated coach I’ve ever known. Sadly, today was our last day together because she’s beginning maternity leave and I’m moving out of the area. I was reflecting on what made her such a great trainer, and I think the essence was her undying belief in everyone’s ability to improve. Each exercise was a chance to do better than last time — to perfect one’s form, do one more repetition, or to slow the speed of a lift or increase the resistance involved.
She never let me slack — she told me she believed in me, that I could do better, and that she didn’t care how many reps I did, I had to do them the right way. There were times that I just wanted an “easy” workout, or when I’d ask for understanding: “Klaudia, can we ease up on the cardio a bit today, I just ate lunch?” I’d ask. “That’s okay,” she’d smile, “I have a bucket for you right here if you need it.”
Frequently she’d time me racing repeatedly up and down seven flights of stairs… Read more »
April 2nd, 2010 by DaveMunger in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Humor, Opinion, Research, True Stories
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I consider myself a relatively fit person. Of course, “relatively” is still relative. I try to watch what I eat. I usually exercise five days a week. Heck, I’ve even run a couple half-marathons. But the rest of my days are pretty much sedentary. I sit in a climate-controlled office staring at my computer screen. I make dinner in my highly-automated kitchen. After dinner I sit in the living room sipping wine and watching TV or talking to Greta. Then I go to bed and start the process over again.
That’s not a whole lot of activity for a creature that evolved for endurance. Over a 50 mile course, a race between a man and a horse can be quite competitive. Millions of people all over the world do hard manual labor day in and day out. But millions of others don’t set aside any time for exercise. In my half-marathons, I’ve finished in the top half of competitors, so compared to a lot of people, I must be doing something right. Right? Or do my sedentary days outweigh my occasional bursts of activity? I exercise an average of 4 hours per week. That’s less than 4 percent of my total waking time. Is that really enough to stay fit? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*
March 18th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, Medical Art, News
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Electronic Arts, the video game development company, has announced its next generation of fitness tools. Following up on its popular EA SPORTS Active product line, the release scheduled for this fall should include a heart rate monitor, arm and leg accelerometers, and an online program to track and share one’s workouts. The name for the new system has yet to be finalized, so for now EA just tacked on a “2.0” to the end of the current name. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
December 27th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips
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Regular readers know that I’ve been promoting healthy lifestyle choices since this blog’s inception. In fact, I even used to lead a weight loss group called “Lose 20 pounds with Dr. Val.” I’ve often joked that because of the law of the conservation of mass, when someone loses weight, someone else must “find” it. And well, I guess I realized – looking towards 2010 – that I had found some of that weight myself!
If healthcare reform debates teach us one thing, it’s this: the future of healthcare coverage is uncertain for all of us, so the most important thing we can do is avoid needing it (if at all possible)! Time to turn that into a New Year’s resolution… so here’s what we can do: Read more »
