I’ve been back into a rigorous workout routine for the last five weeks now. It’s been an adjustment for me given that I got pretty sick twice in the last two months, and with the travel of December/early January, my body was out of wack when it came to waking up early and doing my usual morning workouts. It’s been harder for me to wake up early, but I’ve been pushing myself to exercise at least five times a week. I’m sore in a different way almost every single day, but at least I know it’s a good soreness, as in, I know I’m working my muscles and burning fat, as opposed to soreness that may be from an injury pain.

But this weekend marks the first two full consecutive days when I will not be doing any exercise other than walking. I think my body is in need of this two-day rest period. Everyone needs a rest after a lot of hard work.

We learned the news today that Luke Perry, the actor who played Dylan McKay in the series Beverly Hills 90210, had passed away from a stroke at age 52. While we often hear news of the passing of many celebrities pretty much every single day, this was so sad given that Ed and I used to watch 90210 nearly religiously. When I think of Dylan McKay, he kind of feels like a classmate or friend who I knew and was acquainted with as a child and a teenager. That’s how much I watched that show, and that’s how close I felt to certain characters in that show.

If Ed were still here and heard this news, he’d probably be devastated. Any time a celebrity or someone we knew died, he would contemplate it long and hard. He’d wonder how an actor so young, at only 52, could die from a stroke.

Then again, how could someone so young like my brother at age 33 die…?

It’s been nearly four straight weeks of working out at least 4 times a week, and my body feels really good. I’ve been starting and ending the day with stretching, and doing different workouts with my Aaptiv app to keep me motivated. Every time a workout ends these days, I feel really grateful and relieved… mostly because I know how painful and frustrating getting injured can be given the last two injuries I’ve recently had, and I hated the feeling so much — being powerless, having to wait who-knows-how-long before I would be healthy enough to properly exercise again. Every morning felt like a gamble: would my hamstring still feel tight? Would I still feel pain in my lower back? Please, pain, go away!

The experiences of getting injured recently have made me feel even more gratitude in the mornings when I wake up and feel 100 percent healthy enough to exercise, to go through my everyday motions and not feel constrained by any means at all. I can lift and carry whatever I want, get on a stool and feel steady, and not really have to worry about anything. This was not always the case in the last few months. I just felt so happy the last few weeks ending my workouts and thinking, I did my daily exercise. I didn’t get injured. I am in good health. I feel good. 

As human beings, we tend to take what seems to be the most basic things for granted. But the last few weeks, I have woken up especially grateful, honestly in a way basking in the fact that I am so lucky and fortunate to have the good health and fitness level that I do, and that I feel comfortable and confident in my own skin. Gratitude is the hallmark of happiness, as they always say.

The week we got back from India, I did some pretty rigorous workouts, many of which included a lot of sprinting and HIIT sessions. And during one of those runs, I felt something feel like a pinch in my hamstring, but I figured, oh, it will be fine! It led to me hobbling the next day and feeling a lot of tightness along my hamstring all the way up to my butt, which as you can imagine, was really uncomfortable. I did everything from stretching to icing to rubbing tiger balm all over it. That was over six weeks ago. The pain isn’t there anymore, but the tightness still is. I stopped any running or cardio workout and mainly focused on my upper body. Then I tried swimming last week. But it still wasn’t improving. And it got me a little worried.

So, I called a doctor today to get some advice; he pretty much said I was doing everything I should be doing.. other than continuing to lightly exercise my legs. He advised against swimming, which I’d tried out in the last week. He also suggested I get a compression sleeve for my knee and thigh, which I did. And now I really feel like a poser wearing this. I’ve been hiding it with my skirts, but whenever I’ve seen other people wear these sleeves, I always think, wow, that person must be a real athlete! They must work out really hard! I’m not athletic at all, but I do exercise quite a bit. Now, I am one of those people.

He also told me to take it easy, as hamstring injuries can take up to three to four months to heal with proper care. That… makes me feel really excited. And like an invalid. Maybe it’s just a sign of aging since I’ve never really gotten injured during exercise before.

An old colleague who I was friendly with randomly texted me out of the blue to let me know that his brother has recently talked about killing himself, and that his sister-in-law was worried and out of town and asked him to come stay the night at their place to make sure he didn’t do anything to harm himself. I don’t believe we’d seen each other for at least a year or two, though we were friendly when we worked together two jobs ago for me. He said he knew it was a lot to ask given we hadn’t really been in touch, but wanted to ask if we could chat.

I suppose I am a suicide prevention advocate. I fund raise to increase suicide prevention and mental illness and health awareness, so I’ve made myself the person to go to in a time of crisis. It’s almost like I have a moral obligation to agree to help. How can I say no? So we chatted for over an hour on the phone this evening and I tried to alleviate his concerns and provide some suggestions while listening to what he and his family have been going through.

The worst part about situations like these is that… it’s truly the blind leading the blind. Let’s face it: I was never successful in helping my brother help himself; otherwise, he’d be here now, right? So asking my advice, while I appreciate the thought… I’m not sure I am really capable of helping anyone. I can give my suggestions, say what they absolutely should NOT do, and then hope for the best. We can barely help the people in our lives now with their tunnel visions and chosen life outlooks. How can we help people we don’t even know?

For 18 years of my life, I had no idea what the changing four seasons meant. The weather never shifted dramatically in San Francisco, save for the few-day mini heat waves we’d experience, or the slightly elevated temperatures during our Indian summer between September and October every year. As I have spent more and more time on the East Coast, having just surpassed nine years living in New York and 13 years living on the East Coast, I think every time the weather starts turning from summer to autumn, I start becoming a little bit gloomier and more resistant to getting out of bed every day. I hate the cooling temperatures, the impending knowledge that right around the corner, the snow will be coming and the all the disgusting ice and muddy slush that follows it. I feel like either hibernating in my apartment under my covers, or taking every opportunity I can to run off to the warmer climates of the Southern Hemisphere at this time of year.

Genetically, some people are supposedly more predisposed to getting “seasonal depression” or seasonal affective disorder. Their bodies just don’t adjust as readily to the changes in temperature and weather. It’s not totally a mental block; it’s also partly physical, too. Your body starts physically rejecting the changes by making you more tired, eat a lot more or a lot less, sleep more. I feel like that this week. I wonder if there’s a way to test for that via our genetic testing that we’ve participated in. I wonder how predisposed I am?

This week, I’m wrapping up reading my latest book How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease written by a doctor named Michael Gregor, who also leads a non-profit site called NutritionFacts.org. Reading this book has frankly made me even more angry about medicine in today’s world (or maybe just this country). In the book’s introduction, Dr. Gregor notes that he was inspired to go into medicine because of a truly life-changing turnaround he saw his grandmother go through. When she was just 65, she had a bypass surgery and was told that she probably had days or months at most to live. She entered into a pilot program (in a wheelchair) that required a plant-based diet and daily exercise. After about a month there, she walked out on her own two feet. And on her new plant-based diet and exercise regimen that she continued, his grandmother lived for another 31 years and was even able to see her grandson graduate from medical school.

Once he was of age and met all the requirements, Dr. Gregor applied and was accepted into 21 different medical schools. Much to his disgust, all medical schools in this country spend less than 1 percent of their curriculum on diet and nutrition. He eventually chose to matriculate at Tufts’ medical school, which at the time had the highest number of hours devoted to nutrition focus. He even interviewed at Cornell’s medical school, where one of the interviewers flat out said that there was zero connection between one’s nutrition and one’s health outcomes. Is this what our medical schools are filled with — people who really believe this? No wonder I think medicine in this country is crap.

If there’s one thing I’ve really followed that my dad taught me when I was young, it’s that I really hate taking medication unless I absolutely need it. “Your body is a lot stronger than you think it is,” my dad used to say. But what is “absolute” need, really? I suppose whooping cough is “absolute” need. Then what about high blood pressure? Do we really need high blood pressure medication? A study that Dr. Gregor notes in his book illuminated the fact that by taking two cups of strongly brewed hibiscus tea every day that on average you can actually see the same results as taking the leading HBP medication on the market. What would you rather take — tasty (but sour) hibiscus tea or pills every day?

I always read books like this with a grain of salt; even if I could live longer and healthier on a plant-based diet and eliminate all dairy and meat products, I know I’d be missing out on things I love in life, which I don’t want. But he offers a lot of insight into how USDA food recommendations are marred by food industry money and lobbyists, the benefits of pure grains, fruits, and vegetables that pharmaceutical companies have nothing to gain from if you ate them more, but you’d have lots to gain from a health perspective. He also discusses the science behind all of these things and evidence-based medicine (which I recently learned from a medicine-focused Freakonomics podcast is still not fully embraced by our medical community, surprise surprise; my friend, who is in her second year of doing her residency program now, confirmed this to me in her medical schooling). I realize we live in a factless world now with Dipshit as president, but how can you not embrace evidence-based nutrition and medicine?

Another trip to the freaking dentist. If only my teeth could be invincible enough so that I’d never have another dentist visit ever again, I would be so unbelievably happy.

Today, I thought I was going to have a root canal because of some random hole that had developed in one of my teeth due to teeth grinding, but after an X-Ray that showed exactly what type of hole it was, my dentist determined a root canal would be too massive of a procedure for my issue. What is my issue? That a hole resembling the skinniest little cylinder somehow goes straight down one of my back teeth. This has been causing major sensitivity when biting into anything even remotely crunchy for the last seven months. So instead, the dentist cleaned it up and sealed the hole today. And I left with half my mouth numb, including my tongue. When I went to a restaurant to meet Chris, I ordered both of us drinks while feeling like my entire mouth was contorted, and I was speaking pseudo-English. I wonder if the server noticed.

This is my dental life now and for the future. I can brush and floss all I want, but my grinding is going to take over my dental life. And the silly mouth guard is only going to do so much. How did we become a society full of teeth grinders?