December 26, 2018

This year I decided that I really needed to focus on my physical health. As a middle-aged man, I was seeing warning signs such as a lardy midriff building-up and slightly high blood pressure over the last few years. I was also concerned about the health risks associated with building-up visceral fat.

Since January this year I’ve made around 150 visits to the gym. I have also tried to simplify my diet — cutting out snacks, sugary drinks and milky coffees during the day. I’ve not lost much weight but my shape has changed and clothes are now looser. My wife says I’ve also lost my back fat and I’ve developed a more muscular torso. While my daughters miss their “cuddly” dad the results have been positive and, more importantly, my blood pressure has come down. I’m looking forward to building on this over the next year and trying to reduce my BMI further.

It’s ironic then, that in this year of health I had to tell my girls that some low-grade cancer cells were found in one small area of my prostate in November. I’m not particularly alarmed at this stage — this is the lowest possible Gleason Score and means that the cancer cells found in my biopsy look likely to grow slowly. It may well be that the best approach to manage this may be to do nothing and monitor things in the future. It finally provides me with an explanation for my gradually increasing PSA over the last few years and knowing is always better than not knowing when it comes with these types of illnesses.

Health


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