Well, I’ve got a five-minute walk down to Dean’s Trail. And, uh…

Welcome to Running Fever. My name is Michael Davis, and this is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end.

It’s all about loving life and living long.

It’s been a while, and there’s been a significant change. I’m glad I got the video today because I’m going to show you what happened to this thing in my neighborhood. I’m going to show you the secret, mysterious construction site and how it looks now, but let’s go ahead and do a flashback, and I’ll show you some video of what it looked like when I showed you on a previous episode. All right, so super secret construction site. Yeah, I call it super secret and mysterious just because I’m ignorant.

I don’t know what it is, what it’s for. But, you know, in the beginning, I thought maybe it was gonna be a building, and it was just the foundation of it or something. But here, I’m gonna show you what it looks like today. That big hole in the ground has been completely covered up and sodded, and is now a green park-looking area.

This is a nicely manicured lawn. You know, usual stuff. They’ve got drainage, and it’s very lovely. Very well landscaped.

You can hardly tell that there’s some huge concrete hole underneath for some purpose, probably something to do with water processing, I’m guessing. Processing of something, water. Kind of what I’ve heard, rumors. As we turn onto Dean’s Trail here, another view of it.

And they have put this little building here. I guess that’s for maintenance, monitoring, or something. It’s got a big cylinder there that may be a vent or something, and it’s got a little crane. I don’t know why you would need a little crane there, but they’ve got one.

So I’ll just kind of stop and give you a view of the whole area. So this place started as a secret construction site; now it’s just invisible. You know, most people will probably never know that there’s some huge underground building underneath all this. So, whatever it is, and I’ll probably never know what it was, or what it is, or what its purpose is, but here’s the lovely little house. I’m assuming it’s for some maintenance purpose. Nobody here, so nobody to keep me from walking around. Nice door here.

And this nice brand new little mini crane, commander crane, and a couple of panels where you can get, I don’t know, maybe you can get inside that thing underground. Who knows? Still kind of a mystery, but that’s how it looks today, and that’s how it’s probably gonna stay for a very long time. This little nondescript building. It’s got that weird thing on the back that says ‘bypass’ or ‘normal’. Whatever that means.

You can control it from the outside. So there you go. I wouldn’t say mystery solved, but mystery ended. The trail is pretty much ended.

I don’t know how I could do any research on it, but I probably won’t want to find out anymore. Still got fences on this side of it, but that place where the deep construction was is no longer fenced off. So go out there, take your dog out there, have a picnic, whatever.

It’s a beautiful day at Dean’s Trail. We’ve had a couple of days of nice, relatively cool weather. Alexa weather before that had been very wrong for a few days to the tune of like 10 degrees off the highs. We would say it’s 77 and it’s actually gonna be wound up being 91 or something. So, But it’s very nice today. 70 is nice. The breeze is cool. And I’m enjoying it. I get to work really, really early in the morning. I usually don’t take a lunch break and I get off really early in the afternoon. Or, you know, let’s just say at least early afternoon. Leaning towards mid-afternoon. Started this walk at 2:30 if that’ll give you an idea.

It’s kind of a milestone. I haven’t Been out walking in a while, and I’ve had this sickness or allergy or whatever it is. The doctor didn’t know what it was a couple of weeks ago. They tested me, it was not flu, it was not COVID. And they gave me some antibiotics, it didn’t help at all. And now I’m in the sixth week of this cough.

And it’s gotten better. I don’t cough very much anymore, but I’m still coughing every day. Sometimes at night, I’ll have a coughing fit. So that had me really tired for a while, really fatigued.

So a couple weekends I just did pretty much nothing at all. Just laid in bed, laid around. And I’ve gotten in the habit of doing that in the afternoon when I get home from work. Just laying down and getting up at four o’clock and feeding the cat and then laying down again until dinner time.

And yesterday I was pretty much doing the same thing. And I realized I wasn’t even really tired. In fact, it was hard to stay laying down because I just still had energy. I wasn’t really tired.

I was just doing it because it was habit. And I just needed to overcome the inertia of that habit. Inertia is what keeps you from starting to roll a wheel or something or move an automobile that has inertia that’s hard to overcome to get started. And once you get started, it’s easier.

So today, I have overcome the inertia. So I’m out on Dean’s Trail, walking around. I’ve overcome the inertia, and I am out exercising.

Another thing that’s kind of gotten me out here is just I’ve got all of the things that exercise helps. Sleep. I had a few days where I was really depressed. Especially at night. I was talking to somebody about it today. They asked me if I had that seasonal affective disorder, SAD. And I don’t think I do because I don’t mind darkness, shorter days, bad weather. It’s not really bad weather to me unless it’s, you know, causing some danger or damage. I like rain. I like snow. I like darkness.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, today is great. Not a cloud in the sky. And probably like 70 something degrees. It’s beautiful. But I don’t mind more darkness, shorter days. Doesn’t really bother me. So I don’t think that’s, you know, it’s not like every Fall, I get this. Just like happened recently.

And I realized, sleep affects so many things, we talked about that. But if you can’t get sleep, despite trying, then you miss out on that. And so exercise helps me to sleep better. And another thing I’m trying to get away from, and by now you have heard the series I did on screen time, is screen time.

I was talking to a friend who said he tries to have no screen time, I think after 6 p.m. or 8 p.m. Basically, I think probably an hour before bedtime is probably a good cutoff for watching videos on a computer, doing anything on my phone. Not that I do a lot of phone stuff, but any kind of screen action, I believe if I stay away from that for an hour, that would help my ability to sleep and stay asleep, and have quality sleep. Because lately, it has taken me about an hour or even more, probably sometimes more than two hours, to get to sleep after I’ve gone to bed. And it’s not like I’m getting up late or anything.

You know, getting up at five, going to bed at 8:30 or 9, something like that, shouldn’t be an issue where I’ve just not been awake long enough to get tired enough to go to sleep. So one thing that’s just been missing from all of this stuff is exercise. And so that’s why I’m out here fighting the inertia of falling into bed again and just being uncomfortable. Another thing that’s impacted my sleep is what I believe is a restless leg syndrome.

And I may do an episode on some of these things, but I was really concerned a while for this because I couldn’t find a way to describe it. And the thing is, if I can’t find a way to describe it, I can’t figure out what it is, what’s causing it, and what I can do about it. But I would describe it as just an uncomfortable feeling. Not painful, but an uncomfortable feeling running up and down my arms and legs.

And the only way I could get relief is to move. So here I am in bed. It happens when I’m laying down. So here I am in bed, trying to get to sleep, and I’m uncomfortable and I have to keep moving around. Well, I’m not going to get to sleep that way. So, still kind of need to work on that. I know that one of the things that can cause it is iron deficiency. And so, I may look into getting an iron supplement or eating more foods rich in iron. I think maybe red meat has iron in it. Not really sure. But yeah, I think that might be deserving of a whole episode on Running: A FEVER. What do you think? Put something in the comments. Always happy to hear what listeners want to hear about, because in most cases, if you suggest something, I would go out and try to do something on it. And I have in the past when people have requested things. So feel free to make suggestions. You’re a listener, you have a right to express your opinion on what you want to hear on a show that you like to listen to.

I hope you like what, I think it was just the last episode where I showed you what I looked like after my eye surgery, or my eyelid surgery. I don’t know if it was hard to look at for you, I looked pretty rough after that. But now I’m fine. I’ve already actually recorded a few video episodes that you have already seen. And the black eye kind of went away.

Now all I’ve got is a scar, which I hope doesn’t stay this prominent. Imagine it’s hard to see just because the nature of eyelids Unless you intentionally like close and stretch out your eyelid. It’s hard to see because your eyelids are folded most of the time But it has improved my vision and I can tell now because the swelling is gone and The stitches are out and all that so It’s a good thing I had it. I’m glad that I did because I don’t have to strain.

It was weird because when I would really stretch to open my right eye, I noticed my vision got demonstrably better. And now I don’t have to do that stretching. I’m just, I’ve got my normal vision. So, you know, modern medicine is a wonderful thing. So that was a successful operation. Now, if you’re thinking of doing that, if you’ve got, like I said in the episode, ptosis, P-T-O-S-I-S, ptosis, which means your vision is obstructed by your eyelid. Not just when you blink or close your eyes, but all the time. As I understand it, insurance will not cover that if it’s purely cosmetic, meaning if you don’t actually have obstructed vision. But I didn’t have a problem with that. And actually, I don’t know. I consulted with the ophthalmologist surgeon before surgery, and they took photos, so I assumed that they kind of could see what was going on. But the VA is kind of different. I do have insurance for my employer, but I don’t pay anything to VAA except for a small amount for prescriptions.

But I don’t pay doctor visit co-pays or anything like that. And I had surgery, didn’t pay anything for that. Nothing at all. 100% paid for. But if you are dependent on commercial insurance, Just be aware that you have to approve it as something that’s actually obstructing your vision, not just something that you think looks bad. And you want to have cosmetic surgery there. Also found out that–Dental Department–I got rid of my braces not too long ago, and I’m wearing retainers now. The whole purpose of this was to prevent my bottom teeth from impacting my top teeth in the front, such that the bottom teeth were getting worn off, because I’ve got these crowns, The crowns are about 20 years old, because I was in New England when I got them in the front. And at that time, I guess they were making them with metal, because the backs of my front teeth are metal. Anyway, so that just makes it worse. And sort of the tops of my lower teeth were cut off so you could kind of see an inner layer of whatever’s in there.

Let’s see what we’re looking at. We’ve been going for about 25, 30 minutes. Looks like we got some construction going on here, too. It’s everywhere around here. Crazy stuff. You know, I don’t even recognize this place. I kind of talked about it the last time I was here. Much stuff has changed. This all used to be like trees and bushes and stuff when I first started walking here. I’m approaching a big road. This may be as far as I’ve ever come on here.

I do have a pretty good pace going today. Maybe just moving out quicker than I usually do. I think I’ve been out for a half hour before. Pretty sure. Yeah, things keep changing around here. So anyway, getting back to the dentist. After my orthodontic treatment is all finished, got the braces off and everything, I talked to him. And he said, insurance won’t cover the treatment. I’m talking about getting crowns on the bottom to take care of that problem where they’ve, you know, kind of been filed off or whatever. He says, you know, insurance won’t cover that because it’s purely cosmetic. I’m like, really? Because I was under the impression that my lower teeth were in more danger because of the exposed interior.

But apparently not. And since it’s going to cost me about $5,000 with no insurance, you know, I decided not to. I don’t think whatever cosmetic improvement that would cause is worth it. I don’t think my teeth look bad when I look in the mirror. I don’t think it’s visible most of the time. So if it’s just cosmetic, then I’m not going to get it done. But it is still good that I had the orthodontics work done because it will prevent further wear of those lower teeth. So that’s a good thing.

I’m gonna go ahead and turn around. It’s been a half an hour. I am kind of getting sweatier and a little more tired, so that’s the idea. I’m actually expending some effort. I’m getting myself tired enough to feel better and sleep better and just all around be better. And hopefully this will become a habit. like my just laying in bed was a habit. Only it’ll be a much healthier habit. I’ll be actually getting the exercise I need.

Another benefit of overcoming the inertia and getting some good exercise in is, you know, my progress on weight loss which has been stagnating for months, in between 210 and 220 pounds, pretty much. I think during that time I’ve been down as low as 209 and up as high as 222 when I had a really particularly heavy weekend of eating. But I’m hoping that exercise will, in addition to my current diet, sticking to it, will help me move forward in that.

Been working on this for 15 months now. Started on July 6th of 2024. I weighed 382 pounds, and today I weigh 214 pounds. So, almost 70 pounds.

Yesterday I was 212. Like I said, it keeps fluctuating, but it stays within that range. I just can’t get out of it. I mean, fortunately, I’m not gaining a lot of weight, so I’m not really gaining any weight on a long-term basis. But I certainly would like to move into the aughts, get down to 209, 208, and kind of stay in that range for a while. Not in any super hurry. It’s just that I don’t expect to stay the same for months at a time. I expect to kind of be moving forward and progressing in my weight loss.

There’s a surveyor here doing surveyor things. It’s starting to feel kind of warm here. You know, there’s no trees out here anymore. I don’t think there ever were a lot of trees, but they’re just in this bright sunlight with no clouds. It’s supposed to be partly cloudy today, and I guess it was a good part of the day. So I guess I’ve kind of been through all the medical drama happening in my life.

I’m kind of stressed this week. I’ve got some high-level presentations coming up at the end of the month, and I’m working hard to prepare for that, and it’s just kind of a little better today because I made some progress and I got to a place where probably if I had to give it today, I could. But I definitely want to get my timing down and all that. So there’s more work to do. And then once I do that first presentation, there’s going to be more after that. So I’ll have to get the data together for some different ones. But anyway, that’s been kind of stressful.

And I’ve got a busy week. I’m usually out Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but I’m also this week going to a dinner tomorrow night, a men’s dinner for my church to benefit their school. And so I’ve got that going on. And then Saturday, got a birthday party. And Sunday, got a meeting in the afternoon. So anyway, kind of busier than I like. Today was, you know, today I got nothing this evening that I have to do to be at. So that’s good.

I always like to have days like that when there’s nothing scheduled, so I can do whatever comes to mind. And I’m sure I’ll be much more relaxed tonight having done this exercise for an hour, which would probably be, I always assume, a 20-minute mile for me walking. So I’m really kind of ignorant about how my watch works. I’ve never been able to kind of time my walking with that and, you know, not time, but get distance on it, even though I’m sure it’s possible.

So, yeah, about three miles today. And no regular meals today because I forgot yesterday and went out to lunch and actually ate at lunch. That would be my one regular meal for the day. Normally, I would have a protein shake for the other two meals. But I forgot. And I had a regular meal last night, supper, because that’s when my regular meal usually is. So today, no regular meal. I am just going to go home and have a shake, feed the cat, and have a shake for myself.

But not terribly hungry. I’m up two pounds since yesterday. I want to stay down that lower part and just actually make some progress. Got to do what’s necessary for that.

So I don’t have much more to talk about today, so I think I’m going to wrap it up there. And I hope you’ve enjoyed this talk about habits and inertia and other things going on. And hopefully there’ll be more outdoor episodes in the future. But meantime, I hope you’re enjoying the fact-based, research-based, episodes that I’m doing on various topics.

I always appreciate your input so put something in the comments. I will see it And take some action on it So until next time if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning, and if you don’t, catch the fever, and I will see you next time on Running: A FEVER.