Browsing Tag

Health

Featured Review August 22, 2023

Mark Nolden MD / NorthShore Medical Group : Lumbar Microdiscectomy Hemilaminectomy

I am unfortunate to have had multiple surgeries, both in general and on my back. I am also unfortunate in that both of the recoveries from my lumbar microdiscectomies didn’t quite go to plan. I’m not going to repeat how I got to the place where I needed a second microdiscectomy. Or technically, a revision microdiscectomy and hemilaminectomy. I only say that to provide context; getting old sucks, but the alternative is…

Featured Review May 10, 2023

Kern Singh MD / Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush : Lumbar Microdiscectomy

A few months ago I posted about getting lumbar microdiscectomy to deal with an L5/S1 disc herniation. This is a review of my experience. Unfortunately, it did not go well. To be clear, this is not an indictment of this surgical technique. I know people who have had excellent results with the procedure, and there’s a very good chance that I will be lining up again for a second go, but next…

Blog Featured January 25, 2023

Glad I got the MRI

I’m going to say it started seven or eight years ago, but the more I think about it the more I suspect that the issues with my lower back began quite a bit longer ago than that. But that’s when it hit the place where I couldn’t ignore it anymore, so let’s roll with it. And by “couldn’t ignore” I mean crippling pain. It hurt to walk on uneven surfaces, I couldn’t…

Blog December 16, 2022

Move More? Have A Better COVID-19 Outcome.

If you needed another reason to feel good about all those hours you spend pushing the pedals, pounding the pavement, or even swimming. Let’s bask in the finding in this study, which looked at the relationship between COVID-19 outcomes and levels of physical activity.…

Blog Featured December 1, 2022

Meating in the Middle

A few years ago, my rapidly upward trending cholesterol and high blood pressure scared me into pursuing a Plant Biased (or based, or… something very close to Vegan) diet. Which had an immediate, and positive impact. Can’t say that I was surprised by that, turning off the red meat and cheese tap has a well documented impact on those naughty numbers. When I started it, the intent was to try it for…

News June 2, 2022

Antibiotics May Impact Endurance Athletes

Anecdotally, I have absolutely noticed a decline in motivation and performance after a course of antibiotics. Although, in each of these cases there has also been a reason why I was taking the antibiotics. Usually because I crashed my bike and needed them to prevent or fight off an infection. For that reason, I’ve never really thought about the potential that antibiotics were exacerbating the problem – until last night when I…

Blog August 6, 2021

Another nail in the Keto coffin

I have lots of opinions. Some of them are well-founded, other’s a bit more fluid ;). I do try to keep on top of the important ones, with the idea that as the best available information changes, it might be necessary to change my opinion as well. This is not shaping up to be one of those cases. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think that Keto is a great diet for…

Blog Featured July 27, 2021

Game Changer?

~18 months ago, I changed my diet dramatically. The biggest challenge was mostly the social aspect of shared eating experiences. Which, was very easy during the pandemic because I do 95% of the meal prep in our family, but as the world opened up, that has become more of a challenge. Now that travel and more restaurants are on the table, there are lots of places where there simply aren’t any decent…

News January 11, 2021

Food for thought

Not going to deny that there might be some confirmation bias on my part, but I’ve been really pleased with the changes I made to my diet last year. That’s not to say there aren’t trade-offs involved, mostly around inconvenience, but there’s no arguing that from a personal health perspective I’m much better off. Of course it’s impossible for me to say to what degree the fitness improvements I’ve made over the…

Blog Featured September 17, 2020

Resting heart rate as an indicator of relative stress

Like a lot of people, I track my resting heart rate (RHR) as an indicator of training stress. It’s hard to know whether to CRUSH IT, take a rest day, or get in the space between otherwise. It’s a real number that provides insight into what’s going on, well before I would otherwise notice. With the worst of it over (hopefully), I thought it would be interesting to explore the impact crashing,…

Older Posts →