Tag getting older

Scheduled Calls With The Bestie

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talk-clipart-jba0871

My best friend and I met in 1975 and immediately clicked, not just because we were in the same class, but we were also both only children, bookworms, and sported a long cascade of hair (blonde for her, brunette for me). As we went through our school years, we were inseparable, and got into a fair amount of trouble together, mostly due to her propensity for bending the curfew rules her parents and my mother tried so desperately to enforce.

Two decades later, Diane married and had two children, and I was occasionally asked to babysit the kids. We remained close and though we lived in different counties, we made an effort to visit each other as much as possible. Then in 1997, she and her family relocated to northern Washington state, and I went off to medical school. The geographic shift reduced our visits to once a year, when Diane would come to Southern California to visit her parents and spend some time with me. I was able to make it up to Washington in 2010, when I competed in the NPC Emerald Cup Bodybuilding event. It was so important for me to see my best friend that I spent several extra days up there.

The last time Diane came down to visit was in 2011, right before both of her parents fell ill. Since that time, her father passed away, and both of our mothers became ill and were placed in care homes. Diane’s daughter moved into her own place. I became completely immersed in the world of competing, and spent so much time traveling to other parts of the country that my time and financial resources prevented me from traveling to Washington.

Over the past several years, Diane and I have catch-up conversations about once every 8 to 10 months. Our most recent conversation was scheduled via email, then rescheduled twice due to the fact that we both now contend with having far too much to do and insufficient time in which to get it all done. We had a wonderful chat two weeks ago which lasted for over an hour, which is a big deal for me because I ordinarily can’t stand being on the phone for more than a few minutes. Yet with Diane, I find that we need a good chunk of time on the phone to dig into all the topics we tend to discuss.

Sadly, we will have to schedule another call through email exchanges. We agreed to mark our calendars to contact each other regarding scheduling the call for sometime in May. I still remember when I would just pick up the phone (rotary dial land line) and call my best friend and classmate to chat. Times have certainly changed!

Egg Protein Got Me Lean

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egg

The ravages of competition prep and impending menopause caused me to hold water in my midsection and hamstrings for over a year, and I became despondent and desperate as a result. Nothing seemed to work. Then I took an ALCAT food intolerance test in January of 2015 and discovered that I had an intolerance to a bunch of different foods, so I eliminated the majority of them.

However, I stubbornly kept whey protein in, and chose to ignore the fact that I had a moderate intolerance to it. I would have been fine if I had just consumed whey protein a couple of times per week, but I was ingesting 60-70 grams of whey protein every single day. What kept me in that vicious cycle was an incredibly busy schedule which made it difficult for me to get all of my protein from whole foods.

In late September, upon Ian Lauer’s strong suggestion, I decided to finally eliminate whey protein powder from my diet. I added more animal protein from whole food sources (mostly from MAW Nutrition), and replaced about 25 grams of whey powder with a serving of Muscle Egg. Two weeks later, the water retention issues I had been struggling with completely vanished. I could finally see the lateral borders of my rectus abdominis clearly, and no longer created a fluid ripple when I tapped my belly.

I’m not saying I am ripped as a result of switching to egg protein, but boy, did it make a difference in my level of leanness! This won’t work for everyone though. If you have an issue with egg protein, the opposite effect may occur. In my case, I discovered that my body processes egg protein quite well. I also became a huge fan of Muscle Egg and now have it in my house at all times. I generally limit myself to one serving of Muscle Egg per day, but I also love the occasional nighttime Muscle Egg crepe with Walden Farms Chocolate Syrup on top for a sweet treat.

One last thing about whey protein: I still consume it on occasion. However, I only eat it in B-Up Bars and P28 Products, and I don’t have any issue with these food items. I have, however, completely avoided whey protein powder for the time being, and hope that my body resets as a result.

When Words Elude You

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vocabulary_words

I have always been a decent writer, and have prided myself on having a substantial vocabulary. So when my mind completely draws a blank and can’t find a simple word which I am trying to remember, I become rather frustrated. I will stand there with a vacant expression on my face, sifting through the memory banks, hoping for some kind of trigger. I have become accustomed to the random brain fog moment, which is followed up about an hour later with the word innocently floating into my conscious mind, as if to say, “Here I am…looking for me?” For example, I couldn’t remember the word “cryptic” the other day, but it suddenly appeared after the situation in which I needed to the remember the word had passed. I was heating up a meal, and there it was, POP, in my head. What the hell? Where were you when I needed you?

Instead of struggling endlessly to find a word, I usually give up after less than a minute. It turns out that stubbornly trying to remember a word makes it more difficult to recall that word in the future, so I guess I am giving my brain a break. Perhaps I am also mellowing with age, sinking into a resigned state, and knowing that my noggin will have its misfirings every now and then.

cryptic
I have made the delayed word recall which occurs into a bit of a game now so that the word sticks. When “cryptic” came back to me, I immediately thought of Tales From The Crypt so that the word would stick, sort of like a memory glue so that the synapses might fire correctly next time and give me the word on demand. It seems to work pretty well, so I will continue to do it.

Another thing which I do is to play a word game on the Lumosity website, in which I have to enter words based on a given word root. I figure this is a good exercise for any writer, and will keep me actively thinking about vocabulary. I will say, however, that I have stepped away somewhat from the scientific mode of writing which has been required of me when I write clinical papers. I love complex vocabulary, especially multi-syllabic words which have a way of twisting the tongues of most people. Yes, I am weird that way, a bit of a science nerd. These days, though, I am not writing for an audience of physicians or scientists, so the vocabulary I turn to is a bit more basic. After all, I am not trying to talk over people or blind them with science. I am trying to inform, educate, and communicate, so I want my work to be completely accessible and easy to understand.

Even with all this word training, I still feel like a complete idiot when my mind is desperately fishing for a word or name. It can be downright frustrating to give up on trying to find a word, and settling for a synonym instead. What’s even worse is when I can’t think of a word, and can only think of a phrase which describes what I am trying to say with that one, elusive word. In that situation, I redirect my writing so that I avoid the roadblock. However, if it happens when I am speaking with someone, I am sort of screwed!

The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.)

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Oliver Sacks swimmer
I am sharing this essay which was written by the late Dr. Oliver Sacks for the New York Times. It is a delightful essay which honors old age.

Original post can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-old-age-no-kidding.html

LAST night I dreamed about mercury — huge, shining globules of quicksilver rising and falling. Mercury is element number 80, and my dream is a reminder that on Tuesday, I will be 80 myself.

Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers. At 11, I could say “I am sodium” (Element 11), and now at 79, I am gold. A few years ago, when I gave a friend a bottle of mercury for his 80th birthday — a special bottle that could neither leak nor break — he gave me a peculiar look, but later sent me a charming letter in which he joked, “I take a little every morning for my health.”

Eighty! I can hardly believe it. I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over. My mother was the 16th of 18 children; I was the youngest of her four sons, and almost the youngest of the vast cousinhood on her side of the family. I was always the youngest boy in my class at high school. I have retained this feeling of being the youngest, even though now I am almost the oldest person I know.

I thought I would die at 41, when I had a bad fall and broke a leg while mountaineering alone. I splinted the leg as best I could and started to lever myself down the mountain, clumsily, with my arms. In the long hours that followed, I was assailed by memories, both good and bad. Most were in a mode of gratitude — gratitude for what I had been given by others, gratitude, too, that I had been able to give something back. “Awakenings” had been published the previous year.

At nearly 80, with a scattering of medical and surgical problems, none disabling, I feel glad to be alive — “I’m glad I’m not dead!” sometimes bursts out of me when the weather is perfect. (This is in contrast to a story I heard from a friend who, walking with Samuel Beckett in Paris on a perfect spring morning, said to him, “Doesn’t a day like this make you glad to be alive?” to which Beckett answered, “I wouldn’t go as far as that.”) I am grateful that I have experienced many things — some wonderful, some horrible — and that I have been able to write a dozen books, to receive innumerable letters from friends, colleagues and readers, and to enjoy what Nathaniel Hawthorne called “an intercourse with the world.”

I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time; I am sorry to be as agonizingly shy at 80 as I was at 20; I am sorry that I speak no languages but my mother tongue and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done.

I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever “completing a life” means. Some of my patients in their 90s or 100s say nunc dimittis — “I have had a full life, and now I am ready to go.” For some of them, this means going to heaven — it is always heaven rather than hell, though Samuel Johnson and James Boswell both quaked at the thought of going to hell and got furious with David Hume, who entertained no such beliefs. I have no belief in (or desire for) any post-mortem existence, other than in the memories of friends and the hope that some of my books may still “speak” to people after my death.

W. H. Auden often told me he thought he would live to 80 and then “bugger off” (he lived only to 67). Though it is 40 years since his death, I often dream of him, and of my parents and of former patients — all long gone but loved and important in my life.

At 80, the specter of dementia or stroke looms. A third of one’s contemporaries are dead, and many more, with profound mental or physical damage, are trapped in a tragic and minimal existence. At 80 the marks of decay are all too visible. One’s reactions are a little slower, names more frequently elude one, and one’s energies must be husbanded, but even so, one may often feel full of energy and life and not at all “old.” Perhaps, with luck, I will make it, more or less intact, for another few years and be granted the liberty to continue to love and work, the two most important things, Freud insisted, in life.

When my time comes, I hope I can die in harness, as Francis Crick did. When he was told that his colon cancer had returned, at first he said nothing; he simply looked into the distance for a minute and then resumed his previous train of thought. When pressed about his diagnosis a few weeks later, he said, “Whatever has a beginning must have an ending.” When he died, at 88, he was still fully engaged in his most creative work.

My father, who lived to 94, often said that the 80s had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’, too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities, too. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty. At 80, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60. I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.

I am looking forward to being 80.