Category Archives: Health

PROMPT: Last Thing

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Daily writing prompt
What is the last thing you learned?
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To think of lifting weights as a means of injury prevention, rather than just a means to build strength or power. I picked up this perspective reading Santino DeFranco’s “Fight Ready” (https://wp.me/p1jv7k-fiK.) I haven’t been a fan of weights for many years now and have long preferred yoga, calisthenics, and other (more minimalist) practices, but I can see the scalability advantage of weights as a means to build a robust body.

Although, I hope this prompt uses “last” in the sense of “most recent,” because I very much hope that I am far from — and couldn’t possibly predict — the last (as in “final”) thing I will have learned.

BOOK: “Fight Ready” by Santino DeFranco

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Fight Ready: An MMA Coach’s Guide to Losing Weight, Getting Strong, and Kicking AssFight Ready: An MMA Coach’s Guide to Losing Weight, Getting Strong, and Kicking Ass by Santino DeFranco
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher site –St. Martin’s

Release Date: May 19, 2026

MMA fighter turned coach, Santino DeFranco, offers an insightful and pragmatic overview of the process of getting one’s body shipshape, including: getting sleep, dealing with injuries, strength and conditioning practices, nutrition, and more. The book attempts to be of broad appeal, not just relevant to MMA and other competitive fighters, but to athletes of other sports and non-athletes as well. It was not clear to me that the book achieves said broad appeal. One of the most fascinating and engaging chapters dealt with the process of cutting weight, an activity that applies to few outside weight-graded combative sports. (And an activity which the author, with the pragmatic approach that makes the book so useful, attempts to dissuade general readers from attempting.) The book does discuss the calories-in-and-calories-out basics of nutrition in a more generally relevant manner, as well. And there is certainly wisdom to be gleaned for the non-fighter, but, overall, I don’t know that this would be a good book to send a person toward if they were a typically unathletic person trying to lose a few pounds and be in better shape. (Though I do acknowledge a sort of aspirational motivation that a book might have for such readers, particularly UFC fans.) [And it’s completely out of my wheelhouse to know how generally applicable strength and conditioning approaches are for completely different sports, but I can’t help but have doubts.]

That said, I did come across many thought-provoking tidbits of wisdom in this book. The author is clearly one prone to look to the science and established best practices and to challenge the fad-laden fitness influencers and not dive headlong into the trend du jour. The book uses stories and anecdotes to increase the book’s readability and relatability. Here I’d say the results are mixed, but the aforementioned Tracy Cortez weight cut story is one example of when it is done very well.

If you’re curious about the training life of professional fighters and are looking for a few health and fitness concepts you might apply in your own life, I’d highly recommend this book.

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PROMPT: Perspective on Life

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Daily writing prompt
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
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Becoming less afraid of death makes one bolder, but being more prone to stay injured for extended periods makes one more cautious. Maybe it all just equals out.

PROMPT: Leisure Time

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What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
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Nothing that involves wearing a leisure suit, or a suit of any kind. Except, perhaps, a swimsuit or my birthday suit, or playing a suit in a game of cards… What were we talking about?

PROMPT: Physical Activities or Exercises

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What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?
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I never met a one I didn’t like.

PROMPT: Magic Genie

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You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
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For any wish number one, wish number two always has to be that one suffer no adverse consequences of the law of unintended consequences (i.e. like Midas who turns his food and even his daughter into solid gold.) Wish number three should be that the receipt of wish number one does not rob one of any experience that makes one a better version of oneself in the long-run (e.g. like the lottery winner who had been chugging along through life just fine and then ends up broke and suicidal because of both the additional pressures and the lack of need to be frugal and satisfied with simple things.)

Personally, I don’t know that it’s worth it. The bill always comes due.

But, if forced:

1.) To be contented with what is.

2.) Healthfulness all around.

3.) To die a good death (in due time.)

PROMPT: Physical Exercise

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What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

I’m a big fan of them all. I like to move it, move it.

Each in its time.

Though the less special equipment I need access to, the better. I’m a firm believer that one needs only the body and mind to keep a fit body. It’s all a matter of how, how often, how intensely, and how safely one moves one’s body. Gadgety fitness can become too fetishist, and not build integration of the body as much as is ideal.

PROMPT: Walk or Run

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How often do you walk or run?

Daily. I don’t live in an aquarium (thus allowing swimming as the predominant mode of transport,) nor am I a potted plant that stays where I’m set. Also, flying is out of the question, except in an airplane.

BOOK: “Long for this World” by Jonathan Weiner

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Long For This World: The Strange Science of ImmortalityLong For This World: The Strange Science of Immortality by Jonathan Weiner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Author’s book site

This book considers the science around the question: will there come a day when human beings live forever (or at least considerably longer than we’ve achieved to date? — i.e. hundreds or thousands of years.) A secondary question, explored in the last of the book’s three parts, is should we want to?

It was a courageous decision to write this book because it focuses heavily on the ideas of one particularly controversial figure, Aubrey de Grey. And by “controversial” I don’t mean to the general public, a public which has limited understanding of the science involved, but rather a man who is controversial to many (perhaps, most) of his peers. Of course, with a Pulitzer under one’s belt, one can afford to take a few chances. (Weiner won in 1997 for The Beak of the Finch, a popular science work on evolutionary biology.) To be fair, Weiner does not present Grey’s ideas from the perspective of an acolyte. On the contrary, he is clearly skeptical and not shy about presenting the countervailing arguments put out by others in the gerontological field.

I can see several reasons why Weiner chose to focus on Aubrey de Grey. First, De Grey is an eccentric figure, and that makes for more interesting reading. Second, De Grey also takes the boldest possible stance on the topic (i.e. that there is no reason humanity won’t be able to overcome aging and death, given sufficient time and effort.) Finally, De Grey has a readily digestible roadmap for eliminating aging. De Grey identifies seven problems that must be solved, arguing that the last — i.e. defeating cancer — is the only one that will present a true challenge in the long run.

While I wasn’t converted to a belief that immortality is inevitable (and that wasn’t the book’s objective, though it may be de Gray’s,) the book does offer interesting food-for-thought, both on the scientific question of what it would take and on the philosophical question of whether we should want to.

If you’re interested in aging and mortality, I’d recommend reading this book.

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BOOK: “The Mind Electric” by Pria Anand

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The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our BrainsThe Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains by Pria Anand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Simon & Schuster

There are A LOT of pop neuroscience books out there that reflect upon what we know about the brain from what goes wrong with it. I thought I was done reading such books because, while the first few are fascinating, they tend to retell the same stories.

That said, I’m glad I read this one, and what made it worth reading was that the science was explored in a very personal way, and I don’t just mean that the author recited her own personal experiences or those of her patients (though she does both,) but rather that the whole book is imbued with her worldview. She relates maladies of the mind to works of literature, of Greek and Hindu mythology, and to other aspects of culture in a relatable manner.

Another factor that sets this book apart is that its author shows a passion for language. In that sense, it reminded me of the works of Oliver Sacks (who she references a number of times,) rather than your average — articulate but linguistically conservative — neuroscientist.

I’d recommend this book for any readers interested in neuroscience, particularly anyone looking for a book that sets itself apart from the crowd. (I don’t recall it even mentioning Phineas Gage, which I thought was a requirement of all such books.)

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