Exercise & Learning Lessons.

Everyone knows that exercise is important.  As a doctor, I tell people every day how important exercise is.  Yet, like many people, I just don't enjoy exercising.  The closest I ever got to enjoying exercise was riding a bike.  Now that's fun.  Plus, using a bike instead of a car, is definitely part of going green, and would score me big points in my saving the environment challenge

So I thought about buying a bike, even a secondhand bike, but I didn't want to fall into the trap of paying money for exercise equipment that is not going to be used.  My first consideration was hiring a bike, certain cities (eg. Tel Aviv) have 'green bike' programs where you can rent and return bikes at docking stations throughout the city.  The concept is brilliant.  They've called it Tel-O-fun - see... I told you bikes are fun!

Unfortunately Modiin, does not yet have a Tel-O-fun system, and hiring a bike from my local bike shop just wasn't worth it.

Fortunately, my parents had an old bike lying unused in their garage (for the last  +-20 years) and they sent it to me with a friends' furniture shipment.

With no more excuses left, I 'upcycled' my broken bike with some new tyres and rode home.

Now which of you can spot the problem with the picture on the right of me riding the bike?

Don't cheat and scroll down to the rest of the story.

If you can't see it, ask your kids, they may be able to pick it out.

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Answer: No helmet

The first place I rode to, was my book swap group. 

I got a lot of  "wow, that's impressive", even more of  "are you serious?"

and quite a few "Why do you not have a helmet!!?!*" 

To which I replied something about, well I don't ride fast, I'm just trying it out, I'm on the sidewalk not on the road blah blah blah...

The second place I rode to, was a meeting about e-cards.

On the way back, just a few metres from home, I crossed the road, at an angle, with a bump and fell.

Several "Oh my word, I'm so stupid"s later, I was in the semi-emergency room having a laceration on my face glued and a couple scrapes cleaned and bandaged.

I thought of posting the gory picture of me with blood dripping down my face, but some people consider that stuff gross.  So here's a pic of me with my bandaged eye and bruises.

  

The next day, I went to buy a helmet. 

Happy exercising everyone.

What's a doctor doing - going green ?

When I was young and naive, I knew that I wanted a career where I would be helping people - so I became a doctor. 

A couple years into medical school ( WITS, Jhb, South Africa), we went on a rural rotation, and a beautifully dressed woman took us to see some new hygienic outhouses in a rural village where there was no such thing as a toilet that flushes.  She mentioned, that if one really wants to make a difference in the lives of a large number of people, one should really be in the sewerage development business, after all, no sewerage means more diseases.  Working as a doctor, you only get to help the lucky section of the population who actually has access to a doctor, and of course, you're only helping them once they're already sick as opposed to preventing them from getting sick in the first place.

Now at the end of the day, I did complete medicine, and I am working as a family doctor, (in Israel), and I did not go into sewerage... however the thought stuck with me.

This is why, when I stumbled upon the rather important information that my life was ruining the planet - and that there were many things that I could actually do to change that - it hit home.  I could almost hear the beautifully dressed woman in the rural village telling me; saving the environment one house at a time - now that's a way to really make a difference and help people.