Odds and Ends

Fatigue or Injury - I had an appointment with the most awesome sports medicine specialist MD this week.  We were talking about my running improvement and increasing miles after a hamstring strain.  He was talking to me with the fellow in the room.  By fellow, I mean a person who has completed all of his or her education to be a practicing physician (after taking exams) but who has decided to do some extra training in a special area.  So, she is a Sport's Medicine Fellow.   Fellow is short for fellowship - implying the person received this special training opportunity at no cost, because they are a good student. ANYWAYs - the senior doctor was telling me to increase my miles as I wanted, but to be mindful of the pain I felt immediately after the run and in the days that followed.  If you have high pain level or burning pain during or immediately after your activity then you have an injury.  If the muscle hurts the next day that is a sign of fatigue.  Both the Fellow and I went, "Oh..." Not having really thought of it that way before - but later in the day I thought, wait - that is like weight training.  When you are sore the next day or two it means that you worked the muscle HARD, you challenged it - and it is a good thing.  So my delayed hamstring pain is really not a bad thing - cool.

HFD/CAF - I printed a few articles to read on the plane later this week.  They are from the latest edition of the journal Obesity. When choosing which ones I was going to read, I glanced through an article about metabolic syndrome.  Scientists try to mimic this process in mice - the process involves inflammation caused by the body's response to our diet and perhaps lack of activity.  In that article, the scientists make a case for switching from the High Fat Diet (HFD) that it usually fed to mice to mimic what Americans eat to the CAF diet or the cafeteria diet.  They say that the CAF diet is more like what we really eat because it also includes a lot of processed foods - this way the mice get high fat, but also high sugar, salt, calories, etc. 

Mayhem indeed  - OK - If you know me and have seen this commercial, then you would know it drives me nuts.  I will link the video here so you can see that this is exactly what I advise people AGAINST doing.  (And I saw a man walking and pumping weights this very morning at the greenway)  So - just as crazy as a man running in a suit, wearing a pink bandanna and claiming to be a hot chick out jogging is - so is running or walking while toting weights!  So when you look at the video and ask yourself, what is wrong with this picture, the answer is "everything!"

Intolerance  - I live in an old 4 flat apartment building.  These 4 flat brick apartment buildings fill two or three streets in my neighborhood.  They are not crammed together or anything - they have lots of trees and grass among and around them.  Still they are old enough to come with lead paint disclosures.  I do a lot of walking around the area - it is truly beautiful and we live across from an arboretum (park with lots of trees, shrubs, flowers  - benches and gazebos).  With very few exceptions, no one opens their windows here.  I have lived in three states and it is in NC that this seems to take place.  People either have on the heat or the air condition.  In the fall and spring, sometimes they use both on the same day.  I just cannot imagine not opening my windows.  It seems that the people have no tolerance for semi warm weather.  I don't know how to make this a health worthy note - but I bet there's one in there!  Fresh Air - it does a body good :)