Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis, and this is a podcast about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. And I want to do it by loving my life enough to make it last as long as possible. If that resonates with you, you’re in the right place. We’ll get there together.

It’s the 84th and final episode in our series “Shattering the Yo-yo.” In the last episode, we looked back at the last episode of 2018, number 111, which was actually published on January 2nd, 2019. But I suppose it was so close that I decided to review it.

After hearing the opening of this episode, you might be confused. It’s a meta-meta thing, the previously on of a previously on. It’s actually a look back at the first Shattering the Yoyo episode from way back in 2021. Why? I think it’s appropriate for a couple of reasons. It helps bookend the series so you can see where we ended up and compare it with where we started. Secondly, if you think about it, the series started in 2021, three years after the banner year 2018. And now we’re three years down the road from the first episode of Shattering the Yoyo.

It’s easy to forget that 2018 started with me in a Biggest Loser-style weight loss contest that was very unhealthy. It puts things into perspective. That year I went through a fitful journey from bad dieting to good diet. And I wasn’t walking due to a knee injury in ’18. I wasn’t walking due to an ankle injury in ’21. And now, in ’24, I’m not walking due to a back injury. Injuries obviously are a continuous problem in this deal.

In 2021, we thought we were back to normal after COVID. All the numbers pointed to that. On the contrary, we were to go another year before we finally got back to some semblance of normal, though things were changed forever, and the impact will continue for a long time to come. The challenge to my health journey also continued in marked contrast to what happened back in ’18.

I learned something from the previously on section you heard at the beginning, like I have throughout this series. The very last point, that my weight is the problem, not necessarily my body composition. I’ve heard this from my cardiologist, and I believe it now, especially with the back problems I am experiencing now. If I had continued on a body-building track I might still have that problem. So my goal will be to have a good BMI. I mean, if the docs like it, there must be something to it, right? Which means losing weight and hopefully maintaining and not increasing muscle mass. There are ways to improve definition and strength without worrying about mass, and I’m down with that at this point. So in the concluding episode I’m still learning from past experience.

So what have we learned overall? Well, it doesn’t come down to one thing, or even a few. My philosophy of becoming an expert at my own health still continues. It’s about many different little things. I can learn as much from episode 29, the first episode of 2018, as I can from episode 262, the first Shattering the Yo-yo episode, as I can from today’s episode 369. So, one message is that old episodes are useful. If you haven’t listened to all 370 episodes, why not go back to episode zero and start from the beginning? I bet you won’t regret it.

If you have been listening to this series, I sincerely hope that you found it helpful, informative, useful, and inspiring. I would be happy with even one of those, but my goal, in addition to the ones I mention every episode, is to help you as I help myself. If one person has a positive experience because they listened to this podcast, then it’s all worth it.

As always, if you have a fever, keep it burning. And if you don’t, I hope you caught the fever today. There is much more to come, so stay tuned. I will talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.