|
Greetings to you all!
Good afternoon to everyone who has chosen to be a part of the McDonald Physical Therapy family over the last 35 years! Today I will be highlighting two cases where exercise and a small change in diet brought new life and joy into patients’ lives.
The first patient was a 62-year-old ex-college athlete who was having trouble walking up stairs and walking for more than 10-15 minutes.
The second case had to do with a 17-year-old who had had an anterior cruciate repair (ACL) 10 months earlier, had been to physical therapy but was having pain, and her knee was starting to feel weak. She thought that she may have retorn her repair. In both cases, showing each person where they were deficient in strength and helping them regain this strength, brought them both back to their normal activity levels.
The first patient admitted to having gained a great deal of weight since leaving college. This person was successful in his work but was having trouble with his endurance while walking and getting up and down stairs. After the examination of this patient’s back, hips and legs, he was surprised how weak he had become over time. As is the case with most patients as they age, he was shocked that even with going to work daily, he would have lost so much strength over time. Many of us fail to understand that as we age, we lose 1% of strength or muscle mass every year, beginning in our early thirty’s. We also start losing 1% of bone density after 40. If we do not do something to address these factors, we begin to lose strength, and our bones can begin decaying. As Henry S Lodge, MD (co-author of the book Younger Next Year) says, “Biologically, there is no such thing as retirement, or even aging. There is only growth or decay, and your body looks to you to choose between them.”
I rarely discuss diet with patients, but this first patient asked me if there was a simple change he could make to help decrease his weight and improve his health. This is a much more complex question than I made it out to be. Nevertheless, I told him to cut his sugar intake down to less than 40 grams or 9 teaspoons a day. I also informed him that he needed to read the labels on each bottle, box, can of soda, etc. to count the number of sugar grams they contained. I realize this sounds a bit overwhelming, but he had asked. The patient insisted that he didn’t eat a lot. I asked what he ate on a normal day. He said that he ate Yoplait yogurt for breakfast with skim milk and oatmeal. Much to his surprise, a 6-ounce container of Yoplait yogurt with strawberries has 33 grams of sugar. One cup of skim milk has 12 grams of sugar. He thought he had been eating healthily, and he had already maxed out his sugar gram limit for the day every day. He did tell me he sometimes had orange juice instead of oatmeal. Surprise, surprise, 8 ounces of orange juice has 23 grams of sugar in it.
The second patient is a 17-year-old who came to our clinic 10 months after having her ACL repaired and rehabbed somewhere else. She was advised to come to us for an evaluation because she was worried about her knee feeling weak, and she worried about possible retear. We examined her leg thoroughly. Like the first patient who was 45 years older, she too, had lost much of the strength in her leg. How could that be? She was 17 years old. Many of us may think that once she had regained her strength after surgery, since she was so young, she would have kept her strength.
In our experience, though, when a young person has an ACL repair, they need to continue their exercise regimen for at least 1 year. If they do, most keep their strength. As we discuss the exercises, we do also inform them that we believe they need to continue their exercises at least 2-3x’s a week for their entire life. We realize this sounds a bit much but, as the author/physician states above throughout out his best-selling book, we should all be performing exercise of some kind 6 days a week, to keep from decaying and losing our independence as we age.
Is it ever too late to begin to take care of your body? Absolutely not. It may be challenging, but is there anything worthwhile in your life that has not been challenging at some point? Family life is special, yet it may challenge us every day. Don’t we owe it to our loved ones to try to be here in a healthy way for as long as possible? It is up to us to accept the challenge and begin becoming stronger every day.
At 70 years young, I love being able to run around and hear my eight grandchildren, ages 1- 9 years old, laughing as they try to catch their “Silly Grandpa”. It brings tears to my eyes and a humble feeling of thanks to all the people in my life that have helped me continually learn and believe in the importance of eating, exercising, praying, and resting. My wish for every member of our McDonald Physical Therapy family is that you find a way to work towards getting healthier now and Younger Next Year.
Enjoy the journey,
Fran McDonald President/CEO
| 
