Everybody that has seen this photograph has had the same response - “You aren’t going to use that picture on your website, are you?”
Well, yes, I am. I like this photograph. I don’t like it because it’s a flattering picture - evidently it isn’t. I like it because it’s a picture that largely defines who I have become - a middle-aged guy hunched over a desk struggling to understand a medical article I’m reading in the hopes of reviewing it on the Fitness Rocks podcast.
The picture, taken with the camera on my MacBookPro, is of me sitting at a tiny desk in my favorite room in my house - my gym.
The gym used to be a two-car garage. Lots of middle-aged guys use their two-car garage to park their Porsche, or their Harley, or to keep some other expensive distraction they use to pretend they’re still young and vibrant. I turned my garage into a gym and park my Subaru in the driveway. That allows me to use my garage in a pursuit that actually will help me stay young and vibrant for as long as possible. It makes sense to me.
And that’s why I like this picture - it’s me doing what I do in my favorite place. What about that perplexed, seemingly confused expression? Well, that’s me.
I’m a medical doctor, but I stopped doing that in 2003. Checkout Fitness Rocks podcast 048 click here in which I interviewed myself on my decision to quit practicing medicine and ultimately spend my days producing a podcast - for free. It turns out that this was not exactly a “power move” from a career advancement perspective.
I’m board certified in Anesthesiology and Chronic Pain Management, but my real passion in life is fitness. For most of my life this was a purely personal pursuit. When I operated my pain clinic I tried very hard to get my patients to embrace exercise and healthy eating. I even built a gym in my clinic and had exercise physiologists, Yoga instructors, and a Pilates instructor working with the patients.
Practicing medicine made me keenly aware of how much lifestyle matters in our health. It’s shocking how many people don’t know how to take care of themselves. This is a big deal that is mostly ignored by the public, and by the medical community.
Fitness Rocks is a podcast providing a weekly review of the current medical research regarding the association between lifestyle and health. There is an enormous amount of research in this area appearing every week in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, and, as I just pointed out, it goes largely unnoticed by the average practicing physician and the general public.
My goal is to bring this information to your attention so that you can use it to improve your lifestyle and thereby improve your health.
I want you to share these podcasts with everybody you know, and I especially want you to discuss these podcasts with you doctor. If Fitness Rocks can serve as the beginning of a bigger conversation about the role of lifestyle in health then I think it can be a podcast that changes the health of the world.
It’s that simple.
Have a great workout.
Monte Ladner, M.D.
www.fitnessrocks.org