The Annual Hellness Visit
Haven't Seen the Doctor for a While? I Was There. How I Learned to Embrace the Annual Wellness Visit
Workout of the Day
Today’s workout of the day combines strength and cardio in a 65 minute workout. It features a 20 minute full-body workout without weights including core, 40 minutes of cycling, and 5 minutes of stretching. If you’re looking to supplement your cardio with strength training, the 20 minute full-body workout is excellent, offering multiple movements with only short periods of rest. You can view the entire Peloton stack here and if you complete it, share your feedback in the comments.
Fitness News From Around The Web
Fitness Tech
Peloton Will Slash Hardware Prices, Raise Subscription Fee - The price of Peloton’s original Bike will now be $1,195, down $300, and the higher-end Bike+ will drop $500 to $1,995. The fitness company’s treadmill will cost $2,345, down $150. To offset the lower cost of the hardware, the company plans to increase its monthly subscription fee for the first time in eight years. The price is rising to $44 from $39 per month in the U.S. and to $55 from $49 in Canada, but isn’t currently changing internationally. My take: Smart move by Peloton. I’ve said that I believe the value of Peloton as a company is in its subscriber base and these moves seem to be Peloton recognizing that as well. At $1200, the bike becomes more accessible and the increase in membership is nominal. I’ll continue to follow this story to see how it plays out.
Breaking Up With Peloton - I prefer to workout at home, but it seems that many who turned to home workouts during the pandemic do not. If you find that you’re not using your Peloton as much these days, it may be a good time to sell, though given the recent price cut, you may also consider keeping the bike and pausing your membership.
Most innovative workout gadgets of 2022 to buy for your home gym - Do we need a “smart” yoga mat or jump rope? Probably not, but there are some pretty cool gadgets on this list.
Exercise
Few Exercises Are as Difficult as the Notorious “Copenhagen Plank” - This article starts with, “planks suck, and this one is the worst.” The Copenhagen Plank is a side plank that requires a bench or chair. One leg is on the bench, while the other is underneath it. The exercise becomes more difficult as you decrease the amount of your leg that rests on the bench. It’s brutal, but quite effective.
5 Incredible Ways Exercise Improves Brain Function - There are just some days when I just don’t feel like exercising (like today) even though I’ve planned to workout. Getting on the bike, road or exercise mat is sometimes half the battle. Fortunately, I also have the knowledge and the experience of how I feel post workout and this article covers what happens to your brain when you exercise.
20 moves in 20 minutes to build core strength without weights - I’ll just start off by saying that this 20 minute of nothing but core is brutal. The workout is 45 seconds of 20 exercises with a 15 second “rest” built in at the end of each minute. While the piece does not specify the number of times per week this workout should be completed, I would suggest doing 5-10 minutes of core at least 3 times per week and perhaps incorporate this more in-depth workout on a fourth day.
Health and Nutrition
7 medical tests to get when you turn 50 - This is a great lead-in to my piece this week. There’s nothing surprising in terms of what tests are recommended when you turn 50 and it includes common risk factors for men and for women that are screened for during an annual exam.
The Big Read
As parents, my wife and I dutifully schedule annual wellness appointments for our children. Most schools require them to participate in athletics and frankly, I’m comforted by the knowledge of knowing that my children are healthy and receiving the care that they need throughout their preteen and adolescent years.
As a patient however, I don’t have that same warm and fuzzy feeling about my annual exam. In fact, I pretty much skipped them for most of my 40’s. Sure, I visited the doctor when I wasn’t well or when I was injured, but I completely skipped my wellness visits for nine years. And it appears that I’m not alone. Adults are less likely to receive preventive care than children, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the most recent year studied, just 23 percent of office-based doctor’s visits were for preventive care. And this was before the pandemic, where preventive care fell even further.
In this Washington Post opinion piece titled, Do I need a wellness screening every year?, they cite shame, fear of questions about weight or high-risk behaviors, or a reticence to see the results of long-postponed screenings. Others may skip visits because of a concern about high costs.
In my case, it was definitely the fear of questions about high-risk behaviors and what could be revealed about my lifestyle choices through tests and bloodwork. Additionally, exams (at least in my experience) tend to be more invasive as we grow older. With that said, the whole point of preventive care is to identify potential trouble spots to allow us to make informed choices about our habits and our lifestyle. In hindsight, it was a foolish way to think about my health, essentially leaving it to chance versus having concrete, actionable information.
Since turning 50, I have taken my health much more seriously, having now visited the doctor annually for each of the past two years. It’s doubly important for me as my family health history includes hereditary conditions that can only be diagnosed through testing. Turning 50 for me was the kick in the ass I needed to see the doctor, but if you haven’t visited the doctor in a while, or have similar reservations, you may consider some of the following suggestions.
Choose A Primary Care Doctor Carefully
I worked in the city for 30 years, so it made sense for me to have a primary care doctor that was close to work. Now that I primarily work from home, it became less convenient to shlep into the city for an annual checkup, or for any other medical reason for that matter. If you are looking for a new primary care physician, consider the advice of family and friends. My wife’s primary care doctor was somebody she trusted and so I gave him a try. I found I instantly clicked with him and his approach to medicine, so the relationship worked for me. He considers everything from my health history to vitals and lab results and uses that information to have a conversation with me, versus lecturing me about lifestyle choices. This, above all else, put my mind at ease and made my visits feel much more consultative versus prescriptive.
Lifestyle Changes
Seems pretty intuitive, but if you don’t want to have uncomfortable conversations about your lifestyle choices, be proactive and change them. That doesn’t mean that you won’t have to answer any questions or that you shouldn’t share your history with your doctor, but if you’re already addressing those behaviors, it will make for a much easier conversation.
Change your Mindset
Nobody wants to hear bad news, especially health related bad news, which certainly contributed to my reluctance to see the doctor for all those years. I’ve since learned to change my thinking and approach my wellness visits from the standpoint of receiving feedback about whether what I’m doing in terms of nutrition and exercise are having a positive or negative impact on my health. It’s a sort of grade on my preparation and work that provides me with information and an opportunity to improve.
If you’ve never had such reservations about your annual wellness visit, congratulations! If you are like me however, the one piece of advice I can offer is to be honest and comprehensive in sharing your health history with your doctor. They are most definitely here to help.