Friends,
Thank God, the fight week is over. I have been so severely distracted the entire week. UFC 285 is over, and I promise I won’t watch another video, teaser — fuck this — even another thumbnail for at least another month. The same goes for football and other subconscious attempts by myself for pain glorification activities. That’s what most contact sports are anyway — Glorifying activities that are subconscious attempts by men to seek pain. God, I hate sports.
I wanna touch on an important topic.
I recently read the news about Sushmita Sen and her heart attack. For those who do not know, Sushmita Sen is a badass woman. She is best known for her Miss Universe victory in 1994. She was officially single for a while. She’d decided to adopt a couple of girls. Until 2020 she was dating a bunch of younger pretty dudes — playing the sugar mommy. She’s lean and charming and has a smile to die for. She most definitely rocks the saree. The best thing about her according to me is that she never felt the need to marry anybody. I mean we see powerful dudes living the rockstar life all the time, and it is something to see. However, historically speaking we don’t have female role models of such a lifestyle. Even the baddest of the baddies ultimately talk about or end up being tied down to a knot. Now it’s not a bad thing to be married, but a lack of representation of single women in the world causes a lot of unnecessary expectations. I digress again. So last month(Jun 2023) Sushmita Sen had a heart attack. It came as a surprise to a lot of people. Surprise, because she is generally shilling the healthy lifestyle bullshit — the yoga, the weights and the avocados, also does acrobatic workouts with her boytoys.
Normally we don’t expect such folks to have heart attacks. But She Did! And Here We Are!
This should not come as that big of a surprise though. How we look and how healthy we actually are, may not be as easily co-related. All bodies are different. There is no one-size-fits-all rule for health. There are rules of thumb to be followed, however, everything should mollified according to our bodies.
I touch upon this because I had a personal experience very recently.
Last September, I had a blood test. In June my office docs discovered that I had high blood pressure. I didn’t buy it. I thought that it was impossible. All my reports until now had been normal and I haven’t significantly changed my habits in the last decade or something. I do maintain a conventionally healthy lifestyle outside my casual cynical self. So how could I be damaged? Right? Wrong! Bodies change, and we don’t know what the fuck is going on. Blood work reveals the important details about your health and cannot be ignored. I am not sure where my blood went shitty last year — I do think it has to do with my second covid affliction. However, that’s not the main point.
The main point is that gauging health and gauging fitness are not the same thing. There are very specific markers for both the same. We frequently confuse the two. One determines one’s fitness by measuring one’s performance on a set of exercises. One can only draw a picture of one’s health by getting their blood tested for all standard parameters and asking a physician.
My doctor recommended toning down my diet from meat to include better meat and vegetables, and to reduce the resistance I was training with, ie. weights. I have since taken a different approach to fitness. I have moderated strength training largely, and moved to MMA because of this. I have quit smoking, and drink a lot less.
The main point I want to highlight is — to get your blood work done, as regularly as possible. Maybe your bodies are special & can handle the extra decadent or salubrious things, in which case kudos — but it’s better to know. Get your blood work done.
Me, even me — who’s been mindful about a healthy life since I was fucking 14 was given an alarm.
Who the fuck knows?
Me
P.S. – if you are Indian and want a standard blood test – go to the thyrocare website and book a standard test- you’ll have to fast for 12 hours!