Umair Yasin

I’m glad to see a doctor prescribing this! I mentioned the health benefits of nature recently: “What’s Your NatureScore?”: https://wordpress.com/post/bionicoldguy.home.blog/6547 Health Secrets of a SuperAger Dr. Robert Zarr loves to write prescriptions that you don’t have to take to the pharmacy. Instead, he sends patients outside to soak in the healing powers of nature, combining the benefits of exercise with the therapeutic effects of fresh air and green space, according to the American Heart Associat i on News. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com “Going back millions of years, we’ve evolved outdoors,” said Zarr, a pediatrician who recently relocated to Ottawa, Canada, from Washington, D.C. “Why should we exist indoors? We need to be outdoors. The health benefits of being in nature are obvious.” The idea isn’t new. The 16th century Swiss physician Paracelsus declared that “the art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician.” In Japan, public health experts promo...

My group started out near San Juan Bautista, a town 25 miles South, so I carpooled with a friend with a van who could fit both of our bikes. We did an out and back, climbing San Juan Grade and dropping down onto the Monterey Bay Side, then out Old stage road which ends at the start of the De Anza trail, an off-road route back to San Juan Bautista. That would have been a good choice if it hadn’t rained so much this past weekend. I’ll go do that in the future. This was a great ride on a beautiful fall day. The only problem was the road was pretty bad, with lots of cracks and potholes, on the San Benito county side, though it got much better on the Monterey County side. This made for an adventurous ride on the descent of San Juan Grade on the way back. Fortunately, my bike is considered a gravel bike and has fat tires so handled it well. We had a great lunch in San Juan Bautista afterward. Looking south from the top of the San Juan Grade Looking Southweat from the top. Monterey is...

The view from the top of Diana Road on the East side. I love how there’s so many tress it’s hard to tell there’s a town of population more than 40,000 between here and El Toro across the way I’m glad to be able to say this for the first time in many months. Yesterday I went for a ride in between rainstorms. I love how clear the sky gets. The picture is my reward after a tough climb up Diana. Today the second storm hit hard, we’ve gotten almost 1 1/2 inches of rain at my house with more still coming. Some north bay towns got over a foot! Unfortunately they went straight from famine (drought) to feast (flooding). After leaving us the storm will head to the Sierras where it will hopefully dump lots of snow, which will provide lots of water in the spring. It’s great getting this much rain this early, I hope it bodes well for a long wet season to help with our drought. from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/2ZmeP8A via IFTTT

I went with my local group yesterday. It was supposed to be about a 30 mile outing but with had to go with plan B because a powerline was down, blocking one of the roads, and the alternate route was longer. This added about 15 miles. I did not mind as it was a beautiful day for it. We ended up going out and back on Croy road, west of Morgan Hill, where I used to live. The road ends at Uvas Canyon county park. Then it was back downtown for lunch. I did not have any food with me so I thought I’d run out of energy with the extra distance, as I have not been having breakfast lately. I’m still in the middle of my time-restricted eating experiment . But I did fine. I guess this was a good test of “fat adaptation”. I surely did enjoy lunch afterwards though! First stop, at Chesbro reservoir. It’s really low, we are hoping for rain soon! Fall color is just starting in Paradise Valley Turning from Watsonville road onto Uvas road, looking north towards the Uvas valley. The driveway to...

I went with my Bay Area Recumbent Cyclist Meetup Friends For an outing on the east side of San Francisco Bay starting in Emeryville. It was a fascinating ride, mostly on bike paths near the bay, with some beautiful scenery but also passing through more industrial areas. The first part started on a jetty out into the bay in Emeryville, then was actually parallel to a busy freeway with thankfully and concrete barrier separating us from it. Then we worked our way through nicer scenery along the bay, and passed through the more industrial-looking part, which included passing “Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park”. This area made a major contribution during world war II, not only as a port but also manufacturing area, the most famous contribution being the construction of Liberty Ships. It remains a busy industrial and shipping area, but there are also wealthy homes and marinas along the bay. We continued up to the little town of Point Richmond, not far from the Richmond-San Rafael b...

About a month ago, I had a fever on the weekend and went to urgent care, where the Doc found bacteria in my urine and diagnosed a urinary tract infection (UTI). So he put me on an antibiotic (Cephalexin) for a week. I felt fine after, but a follow up with my own Doc later showed the bacteria (e-coli) was back. She put me on Cipro, and referred me to a urologist. At my age there’s a concern this could be a symptom of a benign enlarged prostate condition. He found that my prostate is not enlarged and appears healthy , but extended the Cipro dose for two weeks more so we can be sure we knock it out this time. He said UTIs can be stubborn, more often in women, but occasionally in men also. If this doesn’t work, I may have to go on a lower dose of antibiotics longer term. I’ll be done with the current round in a couple of days, then get retested. Fingers crossed! I’m tolerating the antibiotics well, thankfully. Nowadays there’s a lot of talk of the disruption they can do to your good gut b...

My piriformis has healed enough that I thought it won’t mind hiking, and my uphill walking last monday was encouraging. So Wednesday I tried my favorite local trail, the Arrowhead loop in Coyote Valley Open Space, and had a great time. It started out in an amusing way. On Tuesday I had a harder than expected group bike ride. Even though I tried to take it leisurely, we had a very windy day. So on Tuesday night I was thinking about the hike I wanted to do on Wednesday: “tomorrow should really be an easy day. What with riding my bike to the open space, doing the hike, and riding back, that’s too long”. I could not see an alternative. This is because I take pride in being “car lite” and doing things on a bike whenever I can. This has become such a habit that it took a while for me to realize “oh- I can just drive to the park”. Which is what I ended up doing (leisurely, in our hybrid, practicing safe “ hypermiling “, of course). It was less windy today but the wind from yesterday had left...

In the summer issue of Outside Magazine there’s an interesting article “Body Shop” by Matt Skenazy (Outside, summer 2021, p 74) . Matt is a serious ultrarunner, rock climber, and skier, in his thirties. Up until now he had not done a lot of work like auxiliary strength training to prepare himself for his fun activities. He did get a nagging injury once in a while, but could always take time off from running and concentrate on rock climbing if he had a leg issue, or vice versa if he had a shoulder issue. Then a series of injuries accumulated that prevented him from being able to enjoy any of his three sports. He is unsuccessful working with doctors to fix this situation. Even the PTs he tries are not that helpful. He starts to wonder if there is something he can do to start making his stronger and more flexible so it’s more injury-proof. When he mentions this to his PT the reply he gets is “I don’t know, have you tried googling that?”. I thought, “wow he needs a new PT”, and fortunatel...

  In farming, it has long been said that the only certainty is uncertainty. Any one of a number of variables can spell the difference between a successful and profitable growing season and a disaster.   These variables include the weather, commodity market values, and shifting government agricultural support policies. All of these are subject to change — and in highly unpredictable ways.   Furthermore, even when all of the above align perfectly to make for a bountiful growing season, other negative agents can step in when least expected. Examples of the latter are a sudden infestation of insects, such as when a plague of locusts suddenly ate large portions of the grains crops of East Africa last year. In addition to bugs, plant diseases like rust, smut, root rot or blight can appear suddenly and destroy production.   Farmers have been enduring these risks for thousands of years, but today technology is giving food growers an edge against once inevitable forces...

I had stayed away from hiking for a while when I had piriformis syndrome in my right hip. It’s doing a lot better now so I want to get back into it. I decided to “stick my toe in the water” by bike/walking some of our local steep streets. It was a pleasant day for this outing, about 20 C (70 F). That went really well so now I’m looking forward to doing one of my favorite local hikes, Arrowhead loop in Coyote Valley Open Space, on Wednesday. After that I’ll look into joining some of the organized hikes in our local meetup groups. The Steep hill at the top of Wright Ave. Briskly walk up, pushing the bike, then ride down. Main Avenue, leading up to the lower flank of El Toro from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/3luO7Dd via IFTTT

First let me clear up a terminology issue. What I call clip-in pedals are usually called “clipless”. This odd term is do distinguish them from old-school pedals with toe clips and straps. “Clipless” have a cleat on the bottom of the shoe that hooks into a mechanism on the pedal. I’ll keep calling them “clip-in” pedals because I think it describes their function better. Riding with clip-in pedals. Doesn’t it seem like the foot would slip right off if it wasn’t attached to the pedal somehow? I always assumed recumbents need clip-in pedals because your feet are sticking out front, so the weight of your legs would cause you to slip off the pedals. There are pros and cons to using clip-ins, on any bike. The biggest pro of clip-ins is that they can make your pedaling more efficient. The biggest con is you need to clip out to put your foot down. Many of us, when first trying them out, have had an embarrassing slow speed crash caused by not getting a foot out in time. The situation is w...

Time-restricted eating is a type of intermittent fasting that I find easy to do. Lots of nutrition, longevity, and medical experts agree on the benefits of intermittent fasting. For one thing, it allows the body to do an internal cleanup cycle known as autophagy that gets rid of damaged components in cells. Research on the mechanisms of autophagy led to a Nobel prize in 2016 . It also can be a useful weight loss tool. It is interesting that nutrition experts that disagree on other aspects of eating agree that intermittent fasting is beneficial. For example, low-carb advocates and whole-food plant-based advocates both agree on intermittent fasting. There is a good review of the science on the benefits of fasting in Ref [1], available online here . I’ve also discussed some of its benefits previously . There are some caveats about it, for one thing it can be a bad idea for people with eating disorders. I’d definitely recommend doublechecking with your Dr. before trying it if you have any...

There is a meetup group called Bay Area Recumbent Cyclists that rides in various places in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today they came down to my neck of the woods and rode on the Coyote Creek Trail so I was able to join them. ‘Bents on Parade- We had 5 trikes and 3 two wheelers It was a great ride of about 3 hours, but got hot towards the end, into the 90s. I think my favorite part was when people saw us going by, I think they thought the circus had come to town. I especially like the excited reaction from kids. I think I’ll start joining this group for some adventures in other parts of the Bay Area as soon as I come up with a better way to transport my recumbent. from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/3uFRzxZ via IFTTT